THE BALLOON DOG BITES

By Diana Simmonds

August 28 2025

THE BALLOON DOG BITES, Old Fitz (Late), 26 August - 5 September 2025. Photography by Phil Erbacher

This time last year, Michael Louis Kennedy’s All The Fraudulent Horse Girls was playing to packed houses at the Old Fitz. It was a massive little play encompassing a world in 55 minutes. In the review on Stagenoise, I wrote it was “…an astonishing piece of work that feels much bigger and more significant than you might at first imagine it could.” Happily, much the same can be said of his latest theatre work, The Balloon Dog Bites.

Running in the “late night” (9pm) slot, this one is also short, sharp, and sweet at just under the hour. That’s where the similarities end, though, as instead of three actors and the intense milieu of schoolgirl horse passion, it’s a monologue for a sad clown and Kennedy has put himself on stage in the role, with assistance from “Directorial Eyes” Jane Schon and Tommy Misa.

It's a bold move as Kennedy is not much of an actor. Nevertheless, despite the obvious drawbacks, the work itself is powerful enough to carry him and a rapt opening night audience. Eventually, as the clown Paulie tells his story, the abstruse title’s meaning becomes comically clear.

Paulie is a chronically under-employed clown who accepts a last-minute gig to entertain a kids’ birthday party in a posh Birchgrove home. Immediately, Kennedy’s acid-dipped sense of humour and sharp eye for Sydney society are out to kill. The party house and its birthday girl, nine-year-old Constantina, happen to be next door to what might be the last unrenovated house on the peninsula, and it’s inhabited by a man who has a rescue bull terrier, and he doesn’t work at Deloitte.

Paulie is a dignified, introspective clown, more James Thierrée than Krusty. He’s also gay and carrying a sex-related injury that might make your eyes water, although not more than the minutely and drolly described behaviour of the party guests, small and large. Sydney’s monied class is painful and embarrassing; these are awful people, and their children are worse.

Kennedy is a talented playwright, and The Balloon Dog Bites is a feast of acute observation, wicked wit, and absurd twists. It’s also surprisingly, unexpectedly bleak at times, when not veering into sweetly poignant moments that almost undercut Kennedy’s deadpan delivery. That somewhat monotone voice is not a performance, it seems. Checking out a YouTube clip from a 2017 Glasgow poetry event, the same vocal effect is evident in the recitation of a bunch of love poems.

Composer and sound designer Oliver John Cameron contributes tongue-in-cheek FX and neatly apt musical passages. Costume designers Nicol & Ford visually realise both the clown’s clown-ness and his sadness. The blurb would have us believe the piece is a cross between Christos Tsiolkas’ The Slap and Stephen King’s Children of the Corn. However, Kennedy’s play is more interesting than the former and less weird than the latter. It’s also funny.

The blurb also says: “it’s an angry gay clown in a life-or-death battle with an innocent child”. I beg to differ. It’s the clown who’s innocent – the brat is too, too Deloitte. And then there’s the crème brûlée and the custard pie. Altogether, 55 excellent minutes.