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July 31, 2015Danny Shelton bought his family a house in Washington
July 31, 2015If you’re going to see Dawg Pounded, the original play written by Cleveland native Tim Tyler, you have to think about your plus-one. I suppose you could go with anyone, but only a certain type of person will properly understand and appreciate the show. You need someone who knows the history. You need someone knows the heartbreak. You need someone who responds to tales of Browns woe not with mockery or scorn, but deep, true understanding. You need to find someone who’s crazy enough to join you at a play about life as a Cleveland Browns fan.
My company for the evening was my longtime friend and fellow Browns fan Matt. Our folks go way back. Our dads went to school together. Hell, our dad’s moms went to school together, and they’re both 95 now. Matt and I have known each other a good long while, which means that we’ve collectively coped with quite a few football defeats on the lakefront. (We’ve celebrated victories, too; he was there when my dad lost the tickets and Ty Detmer threw seven picks for the Lions.)
The show took place in Kennedy’s Theatre, in the basement below the lobby of the Ohio Theatre. The exposed brick walls were adorned for the occasion with pictures and posters of Browns of yesteryear. A wooden bar was tucked away to the right of the stage, so that anyone wanting to freshen their beverage had to walk in front of the performance. No matter; it was encouraged. Shortly before the show began, the audience was given a suggestion: “We suggest that you drink as heavily as you can.” You’re not going to find a Playhouse Square production any closer to the Muni Lot experience.
You’re not going to find a Playhouse Square production any closer to the Muni Lot experience
You’re not going to find a Playhouse Square production any closer to the Muni Lot experience
I felt bad for Matt, then, having recommended earlier in the night that he dress up for the occasion — you know, something with a collar. The show was at Playhouse Square, so I figured fancy dress was in order: let’s see, where are my nice jeans? After doing some a bit of research and thinking, and only after Matt had left his abode for mine, I realized that that was unnecessary. This was a Browns play, held in a basement.
I gladly shucked aside my polo shirt and threw on my prized 1989 AFC CENTRAL CHAMPS t-shirt. Really, I could have worn anything as long as it wasn’t black and gold. Everything was in play, from Joe Haden jerseys to Hawaiian shirts to neckties. The whole thing had a very come-as-you-are vibe. When the production moves to the Hofbrauhaus in August, I expect that will be truer than ever.
Kennedy’s felt not unlike a sports bar, which was fitting since the play primarily takes place in a sports bar. The story is the football odyssey of Paul and Otto — if you’ve read this far, you understand why those are their names — two lifelong fans who spend every Sunday on the same stools, bracing for the downs and reveling in the ups of life as Browns fans. The 2015 edition, the show’s second season, tells the tale of watching the 2014 Browns. As Tim Tyler told Craig Lyndall on the WFNY podcast, there was no need to invent a fictional squad. That team wrote the story itself.
You remember. The team that crammed 158 rushing yards down the Steelers’ throat in a 31-10 victory. The team that beat the Cincinnati Bengals 24-3 to improve to 6-3, first place in the AFC North. The team that averaged nearly 27 points in its first five games. The team that scored 16 points in the final 11 minutes to beat the Tennessee Titans. The team that beat the Falcons by two thanks to Mike Smith’s mismanagement. It was that team that took us up so high.
Ah, but it was also the team that lost its last five, including a vengeful 30-0 beatdown at the paws of the Bengals. The same team that scored 13 or fewer points in four of its last five games. The team that rallied around Alex Mack after he went down with an ankle injury, but which ultimately could not cope with such a blow. It was the team on which Brian Hoyer went from toast of the town to just plain toast, and on which Johnny Manziel looked less able than when riding swanback.
Dawg Pounded easily could have been a tragedy.
But as any Browns fan hoping to maintain a shred of sanity must, Tim Tyler turned to comedy, often with the aid of music. There’s a funereal reading of the names of Browns quarterbacks since 1999, complete with bells tolling. There are a host of songs re-invented for Dawg Pound purposes, like “(You Gotta) Fight For Your Right (to Tailgate).” Kyle Shanahan’s infamous PowerPoint presentation is skewered in “32 Ways to Leave Your Contract,” a sendup of Paul Simon’s “50 Ways to Leave Your Lover.”
Paul and Otto (played by Tom Hill and Greg Mandryk) keep the show humming. They evoke memories of Bill Swerski’s Superfans from Saturday Night Live and Dante and Randal from Clerks. Like the Chicago Superfans — first played by Joe Montegna, Chris Farley, Mike Myers, and Robert Smigel — the Cleveland duo invest a ridiculous amount of time, energy, money, and self-esteem in their Brownies. Like Dante and Randal do with, say, Star Wars, Paul and Otto use the Browns as a jumping off point for conversations that go far beyond football. The pair are constantly pestered by their foil, Pittsburgh Pete (Don Jones), who straps on his best yinzer accent and torments the protagonists at every turn.
They evoke memories of Bill Swerski’s Superfans and Dante and Randal from Clerks
They evoke memories of Bill Swerski’s Superfans and Dante and Randal from Clerks
The show does, however, have a more serious side. Sometime in the second act — perhaps it was the third; I made sure to heed the aforementioned pre-show suggestion — a character’s father passes away. It was the same father, of course, who indoctrinated his son into this misspent life of Browns fandom. It was the father who told tales of the dynastic Browns, stories that would seem wholly unbelievable to anyone only privy to the franchise’s second incarnation. The Browns, rightly or not, were the thing over which this particular father and son could always bond.
It felt familiar. It was a little frightening, frankly. The dad in the play passed away due to complications from Alzheimer’s, a particularly cruel disease that claimed my maternal grandfather’s life.1 Matt’s dad and mine are officially senior citizens, and both have dealt with their share of maladies over the years — though it’ll take something a hell of a lot stronger than cancer to keep them down. Our dads introduced us to football, and apparently did so convincingly enough for us to have nothing but love for our Brownies. Dawg Pounded understands that that is where fandom comes from, and treats it with respect.
That said, the show has a decidedly and appropriately crude side. Potshots are taken at Detroit and Baltimore, and especially at Pittsburgh. A female character remarks that the only time her husband is able to, er, perform is after a Browns win — or a Steelers loss. Terrible Towels are referred to on one occasion as “yellow tampons.” The dialogue is filled with the stuff that makes being a football fan fun, even as it makes it mostly inexcusable.
Browns fandom is a peculiar thing, and only in the hands of a Clevelander could that experience possibly be expressed in something like a play. I was a touch skeptical going in, but Tyler and company did a commendable job. The entire show drips with Browns history — all of the important beats of the past 60 years are covered in three minutes’ worth of a “We Didn’t Start the Fire” remake. I imagine an out-of-towner would be thoroughly confused by the whole thing. And that’s the point. Major League works because writer/director David Ward grew up a Tribe fan. Dawg Pounded works for the same reason.
It would have been an easy show to do lazily. Throw a few songs together, Google a bad player or two, and boom, it’s done. The Browns and their fans make for easy targets. But Dawg Pounded comes from a more sincere, knowing place. It doesn’t seek to only poke fun at Browns fans. All it does is hold a mirror up to us. It just so happens that we’re a funny bunch.
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Dawg Pounded will show at Kennedy’s Theatre at Playhouse Square on July 31 and August 1, 7-8. The play will then run at Hofbrauhaus Cleveland on August 15, 21-22, 28-29; September 5, 11-12, 18-19, and 25-26. The show begins at 8 p.m. for all dates.
For more information, visit DawgPounded.com.
- He was a fan of the Buffalo Bills, which is about as close to a brother franchise as the Browns have. [↩]