From November 28–30, 2024, Thaumatrope Theatre presented Dogfight: The Musical to the stage, under the direction of the company’s founder Isabella Cesari. Since its launch in 2022, Thaumatrope Theatre has been dedicated to creating opportunities for early-career artists in Toronto, featuring many U of T alumni and students contributing to its productions. Cesari describes Dogfight as a story centred on “forgiveness and understanding as tools for building self-worth and resilience.” 

Naiveté and rude awakening

In November 1963, a young American marine, Eddie Birdlace (Nick Cikoja), and his friends Boland (Tobi Omooba) and Bernstein (Sam Pike) host a party on the eve of their deployment to Vietnam. The event, known as a ‘dogfight,’ is a cruel competition where the goal is to bring the ‘ugliest’ date, with a cash prize awaiting the winner. 

In an early, high-energy group number, Eddie and his friends prowl for women to charm and bring to the party. Among them is Rose (Jay Roomes), a naive waitress and aspiring musician, whom Eddie finally convinces to join him after several failed attempts with others. Though initially hesitant, Rose eventually agrees, swayed by Eddie’s persistence.

COURTESY OF ISABELLA CESARI

In a poignant solo number, the audience sees Rose preparing for the evening, her excitement palpable as she revels in the thought of finally being asked on a date — completely oblivious to the event’s cruel true purpose. Roomes portrays Rose with a sweetness and shyness that make her endearing, rendering the scene all the more devastating. 

In the bathroom, Marcy (Madi Morelli), a sex worker hired by one of Eddie’s friends to help him win the dogfight, reveals the nature of the party to Rose during the song “Dogfight.” Though Marcy and Rose initially seem like opposites, this moment unveils their likeness in a new side of Rose, as she stands up for herself and holds firm to her ideals. Roomes’s Rose and Morelli’s Marcy deliver a powerful duet, channelling a much-needed expression of rage and vocal intensity at this point in the show.

Rose leaves the bathroom in shock and humiliation. The tension reaches its peak near the end of the first act when Rose confronts Eddie, slapping him and delivering a searing rebuke, expressing her anger and pain. During the November 29 showing, this moment of catharsis prompted the audience to erupt in cheers.

Rose is naive and idealistic, but in their own way, so are the marines. They use the dogfight to flaunt their perceived superiority, dehumanizing their dates by objectifying their perceived ugliness — a final masculinizing ritual before leaving for Vietnam. In 1963, years before the controversial draft, these men volunteered for war, treating it as just another rite of passage, like getting matching tattoos or forcing awkward sexual encounters.

They imagine themselves returning as ‘hometown heroes,’ but the horrors of the Vietnam battlefield shatter their illusions. In a disorienting combat scene marked by intense shadows and orange lighting, Eddie and his friends chant their catchphrase: “We three bees have a mighty sting and we come prepared for anything.” One by one, they fall, leaving until Eddie is left alone. 

Compassion and shared humanity

When Eddie returns from Vietnam, he is far from the hero he imagined. He has no one waiting for him and is consumed by guilt. In many ways, he finds himself in a similar position to Rose at the end of Act 1 — objectified, this time as a casualty of the American military-industrial complex, much like how he used Rose as a pawn in his performance of masculinity during the dogfight.

Having lost touch with Rose, after completely breaking his promise to write to her from Vietnam, Eddie eventually finds her again. She is visibly older, more mature, and subdued. In the final scene, Eddie meets her as he truly is — broken from the war, no longer possessing the youthful bravado he had in the first act. He no longer attempts to charm her or impress her with tricks. This time, their meeting is simply two people recognizing their shared humanity. 

COURTESY OF ISABELLA CESARI

Discussing her directorial choices in the final scene, Cesari said: “It was important to me that Rose’s choice to embrace Eddie and forgive him for not keeping in contact with her [does] not appear to be her fulfilling her duty of empathy as a woman, but that it be an expression of her personal beliefs which she has expressed throughout the story.” 

Although Dogfight is set in a specific historical moment, the story it tells remains timeless because the themes it explores are universal. Dogfight is about ugliness, but it isn’t simply a plea for Eddie to learn to see Rose as beautiful or to recognize the value of inner beauty. The ugliness of the women at the dogfight is secondary to the deeper ugliness of the cultural narratives that shape them. Dogfight is a love story, in a sense, but it avoids becoming the romance it might have easily turned into. The tension that once existed between Rose and Eddie — her nervousness, his conflicted nature — disappears when they meet again, replaced by forgiveness, understanding, and compassion.