The production has its flaws, but Stella Mulroney and Zachary Santolaya deliver such rich and powerful performances as Rose and Eddie in Mouth Bone Productions’ Dogfight that I couldn’t help once again falling for the Louise Lortel Award-winning Outstanding Musical of 2012.

Movie buffs will recall Dogfight as the 1991 sleeper that starred a then 20-year-old River Phoenix as Vietnam-bound Marine Eddie Birdlace and 24-year-old Lili Taylor as a Plain Jane San Francisco waitress named Rose Fenny, the unwitting victim of a cruel joke perpetrated by Eddie and his jarhead buddies on the eve of their departure for Southeast Asia circa 1963.

It may seem to Eddie like a harmless rite of passage to invite a clueless Rose to the musical’s titular “dogfight” in hopes of pocketing several hundred bucks for finding the ugliest girl in town, the winner to be determined at a “competition” held in a local bar.

For Rose, however, it’s an outwardly nondescript girl’s dream come true, and it is Eddie’s gradual realization that the “dog” he’s picked is a living, breathing, emotion-feeling human being (and just maybe one who will touch his own soon-to-be-tested soul) that gives Dogfight its emotional punch.

Peter Duchan’s Outer Critics Circle Award-nominated book sticks close to Bob Comfort’s screenplay, while jettisoning the movie’s Kennedy Assassination Eve-specific time frame and bookending the musical with scenes of Eddie bussing back to San Francisco in 1967.

Still, it’s Benj Pasek and Justin Paul’s memorable collection of pre-Dear Evan Hansen songs (the infectious “Come To A Party,” the downright exquisite “Nothing Short Of Wonderful,” and the achingly beautiful “Pretty Funny” among them) that give the musical its emotional heart and punch.

Not only that, but songs like “Some Kinda Time” (a sextet of newbie Marines on their last night in Frisco before heading off to basic training) and “Hey, Good-Lookin’” (those same horny jarheads trying out corny pickup lines) give Santoloya, Donnie Riddle and Gil Dolet as Eddie’s besties Boland and Bernstein, and Michael Arrieta, Eadric Einbinder, Omari Miller, Jason Rivera, and Terrence Robinson the chance to show off choreographer Kylie Buckles-Hall’s macho moves.

Later, Tea Berumen, Arlette Carranza, Alladis Hernandez, Mulroney, Eva Schroeder, and Taylor Valenzuela join the boys slow-dance style to the silky strains as Miller (Lounge Singer) serenades them with the he uber-romantic “That Face.”

Last November’s Alice By Heart showcased the directorial talents of Mulroney and Jude Rossotto, reteaming here for a far different show than that Alice In Wonderland-inspired musical.

This time round it’s about creating real human beings, and though minor characters don’t give the performers who play them much to work with, the same can’t be said for Dogfight’s five principals.

Mulroney has us rooting for Rose from the moment we first meet her, and she invests the role with a touching mix of vulnerability and hope and a whole lot of heart.

Opposite her, AMDA grad Santolaya (a find!) is not only thoroughly believable as a fledgling Marine, buzzcut and all, but equally real as an eighteen-year-old discovering what it really means to be a man, and like Mulroney, he has the vocal chops to make Pasek and Paul’s songs soar.

Mouth Bone favorites Riddle and Dolet do terrific work too, the former unafraid to give us Boland’s uglier personality traits and the latter utterly adorable as his more tenderhearted (and virginal) bff, and the fiery, feisty Hernandez’s Marcy belts out a powerhouse “Dogfight” like nobody’s business.

Mouth Bone merits major snaps too for eschewing prerecorded tracks for an honest-to-goodness live band, and not only do they sound great thanks to Johnny Perl on keyboards, Gerald Molina on guitar, Daniel Sedano on bass, and Gordon Laurencell on drums, sound designer Kensington Watts mixes vocals and instruments to crystal-clear effect.

Budget limitations are evident in Rossoto’s set design and Leo Tamez’s scenic design (I’m not sure what the difference between set and scenic is here) and Rosotto’s period costumes are mostly quite fine.

Landon Popadic’s lighting design, on the other hand, could use some fine-tuning, particularly in ensuring that actors’ faces don’t remain in the shadows.

In an ideal production, the performers playing Marines would all have gotten appropriate haircuts before opening night, and there’d be not a single distractingly anachronistic tattoo in sight other than the three bees referred to in the script. On the plus side, rear projections (mostly paintings of San Francisco by day and by night) give the production artistic flair, and a combat scene straight out of Platoon or Full Metal Jacket is a gut-puncher as staged by fight and intimacy director Celina Surniak.

Dogfight is produced by Mulroney. Riddle is assistant director. Perl and Alyssa Weir are music directors. Mercedes Stafford is stage manager.

 As with last year’s Glory Days and Alice By Heart, Dogfight showcases a young company with talent and determination and heart. Mouth Bone Productions’ latest may not get everything right, but what they do get right, they get very right indeed.

MouthBone Theatre, Eastwood Performing Arts Center, 1089 N. Oxford Ave., Hollywood.
www.mouthbone.com

-Steven Stanley
April 18, 2026

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Tags: Los Angeles Theater Review, Mouth Bone Theatre, Pasek & Paul, Peter Duchan, the Eastwood