Dogfight is a 2012 off-Broadway musical adaptation of the film of the same name. The musical was composed by Pasek And Paul, starring Lindsay Mendez as Rose Fenny and Derek Klena as Eddie Birdlace.
The night before some US marines ship out to Vietnam, they decide to celebrate by throwing a dogfight, in which the marine who brings the ugliest girl to a party as their date wins a cash prize. The musical focuses on the marine Eddie Birdlace, and the girl he brings to the dogfight, Rose Fenny.
Dogfight contains examples of:
- The '60s: Set in 1967 for the bus ride home and 1963 for everything pre-deployment, according to the script.
- Adaptation Name Change: Eddie's friends Berzin, Benjamin and Oakie get changed to Boland, Bernstein and Fector.
- Adaptational Jerkass: Downplayed with Rose. In the film when she finds out about the dogfight, she shames the men with Do You Think I Can't Feel. In the musical, she outright says she hopes they all die in the war.
- All Musicals Are Adaptations: A musical adaptation of the film Dogfight.
- All There in the Script: A downplayed version: Rose’s last name (Fenny) is not ever spoken or sung in the musical, only provided in the script.
- Call-Back: When Eddie sings “No parade, all you get is shit” in “Come Back” after returning from the Vietnam War, it’s a reference to the “Hometown Hero’s Ticker Tape Parade” he thought he’d be getting upon coming home.
- Composite Character: There were four Marines in Eddie's friend group in the film, but just three in the musical.
- Dark Reprise:
- The piano accompaniment in “Dogfight,” where Marcy explains the dogfight to Rose and the two disagree about how to deal with being the targets of the cruel prank, is essentially the minor-key version of the piano accompaniment in “Come to a Party,” where Birdlace convinces Rose to come as his date to the dogfight.
- The war sequence has the Three Bees speaking the lyrics to their Friendship Song “We Three Bees,” with Boland and Bernstein being cut off when they are killed in battle, leaving Birdlace as the only one still speaking the lyrics.
- Death by Adaptation: Sort of. Birdlace's friends were only implied to have died in the Time Skip (with only one being outright confirmed). This one confirms they all died.
- Death Song: To be expected of a piece titled “War Sequence.”
- Diegetic Musical: Not the whole show, but when Rose plays a bit of the song she’s working on, “Give Way,” on her guitar, it’s happening In-Universe. Likewise for everything the Lounge Singer sings, those songs are being performed In-Universe at a club.
- Diegetic Switch: “Give Way” is sung by the ensemble non-diegetically as Rose takes Eddie to her apartment. Rose accepts Eddie’s request to play the song she was working on at the diner, which happens to be “Give Way.” This is where it shifts into being diegetic, but when Rose finishes what she has so far and the scene moves on, the ensemble starts up again and the song continues non-diegetically.
- Disappeared Dad: Rose never met her father, who died in a war, and her mother never talks about him. Birdlace’s walked out on him when he was 6.
- Dramatic Irony:
- Immediately after Eddie sings about how he’s grateful he got Rose as his date for the dogfight, Rose sings about how excited she is for the date and how Eddie might be “Nothing Short of Wonderful.”
- The marines sing about getting a hero’s welcome back home after they finish their deployment in “Hometown Hero’s Ticker Tape Parade.” The audience, who knows they’ve shipping out to Vietnam, knows much better about the kind of reception they’ll get upon returning home.
- Event Title: The title of the musical refers to the event it centers around: the dogfight the marines have, the competition where they try to bring the least desirable date to a party.
- Fake Relationship: Rose pretends to be newly wed to Birdlace in order to get the waiter to let them into the restaurant without a reservation.
- Foregone Conclusion: The show opens with Birdlace coming home after the war. It’s clear he’ll survive his deployment.
- Friendship Song: “We Three Bees,” explicitly called “their group’s upbeat song of friendship” in the script.
- Haughty Help: The waiter at the fancy restaurant, described by the script as “snooty.”
- How We Got Here: After a quick scene establishing Birdlace as a veteran coming home from the Vietnam War, the scene changes to his memories pre-deployment, which make up the bulk of the show and explain how he got from those pre-deployment memories to the bus ride home.
- "I Am Becoming" Song: “Before It’s Over” is about how Rose has learned to break past her insecurities and how others perceive her.
- The Ingenue: Rose, who is kind, romantically/sexually inexperienced, idealistic, and highly empathetic.
- In Medias Res: The show starts near the very end of events chronologically, with Birdlace coming home from the war. The next scene goes back to the start of events on the marines’ final night in the US before they’re deployed.
- In-Series Nickname: “Eddie” for Edward Baines Birdlace.
- Ironic Echo: Birdlace sings “Just for a night, no holdin’ tight, let go” in “Come to a Party” when trying to convince Rose to be his date to the dogfight. She eventually agrees, unaware that the date she was invited on is a setup for humiliation. Later, he feels guilty and tries to divert her from the party, but Rose still wants to go, singing “Just for a night, no holdin’ tight, let go.” He acquiesces and takes her to the party.
- Irony: Aside from “Blast Off,” everything the Lounge Singer sings runs on this.
- He sings “That Face,” a song about the singer’s love’s pretty face, as he makes judgments on how ugly the women in the dogfight (and presumably their faces) are.
- He also sings “Baby have another drink” when Rose is rushing to the bathroom to throw up because she drank too much.
- Birdlace, already feeling guilty about bringing Rose to the party as his date to the dogfight, hears Bernstein say something degrading about her and snaps at him, hurting Bernstein’s feelings. Cue “Dancin’ feet, sugar sweet, it’s just a party, woah-oh-oh-oh!”
- Rose finds out about the dogfight, slaps Birdlace, and says she hopes all the dogfight’s participants get killed in a war. Ruth Two-Bears also tosses her drink in her date Bernstein’s face, presumably having found out about the dogfight too. Cue “Leave your worryin’ behind, unwind, it’s just a party, yeah.”
- Last-Second Word Swap: Birdlace in “First Date/Last Night.”What took hold?
Look at her
She looks so...
(About to express something potentially dismissive of ROSE, he looks at her and notices something.)
Cold
(BIRDLACE gives ROSE his jacket.) - Let's Duet:
- “Dogfight” for Rose and Marcy, where Marcy explains that the party Rose was invited to is a dogfight and how it works, and Rose and Marcy disagree over how to handle being the victim of the prank.
- “First Date/Last Night” for Rose and Birdlace, where they sing their inner thoughts about how they don’t understand each other and the situation is awkward. Its reprise also has Rose and Birdlace sing it, this time their inner thoughts about how their dinner went oddly but not terribly.
- Letter Motif: The “Three Bees” Birdlace, Bernstein, and Boland are best friends because their names start with the same letters: they had to line up alphabetically in infantry training and always ended up next to each other because of where their name fell in the alphabet.
- Lounge Lizard: The Lounge Singer, “sleazy, showy, self-indulgent” and working at a “low rent club.” Also judges the dogfight, rating women 1–10 on how ugly they are with 10 as the ugliest.
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Moral Event Horizon: Bernstein physically intimidating a prostitute into servicing him after she's decided to call it a night makes Birdlace realize how toxic the Marine's behavior really is. - Oblivious Guilt Slinging: Rose tells Eddie how excited and glad she is for being invited to the party and continuously acts it, making him feel guilty and start trying to back out of taking her to the party so she isn’t judged at the dogfight.
- One-Word Title: The title of the musical is "Dogfight," one word, referring to the competition to bring the least desirable date to a party.
- Pet the Dog: Although Fector takes a girl to the dogfight knowing exactly what it is, he’s genuinely sweet to her the whole time. Except for the part where he still goes through with getting her judged by the Lounge Singer while she’s completely unaware that’s what’s happening, and Fector’s completely drunk so it might just be because of that… But that’s the only act of cruelty seen or heard from him the whole party.
- Platonic Prostitution: Boland hires the nearly toothless prostitute Marcy not to have sex with her, but to be his date to the dogfight since her toothlessness practically guarantees she’ll win him the cash prize for bringing the ugliest date to the party.
- Prank Date: Type 3, the titular dogfight, in which the marines compete for a cash prize by bringing the ugliest girl they can to a party.
- Scary Teeth: Marcy wins the competition for the ugliest girl because of her “foul teeth” and near-toothlessness.
- Share Phrase: All the US marines in the show say “Semper Fi, do or die,” often when they’re about to face a challenge. Fittingly, the motto of the real-life US Marines is “Semper Fidelis,” frequently shortened to “Semper Fi.”
- Softer and Slower Cover: The bombastic and uptempo “Hometown Hero’s Ticker Tape Parade,” where the marines fantasize about receiving a hero’s welcome when they return home from the war, gets a quiet, slower reprise towards the end of the second act when Bernstein pep-talks Boland about the Three Bees supporting each other during the war.
- Spiteful Spit: One of the hippies spits in Birdlace’s face after he comes home from the Vietnam war.
- The Stoic: Ruth Two-Bears: “deadpan and largely without interpretable expression,” and “stone-faced, as always,” according to the script.
- Storyboard Body: Each of the Three Bees gets a bee tattoo symbolizing their friendship with each other. Although Birdlace gets his after the other Bees die.
- Survivor's Guilt: Birdlace gets this after being the only of the Three Bees to survive Vietnam.Birdlace: Repeat, replay
Each death, each day
There’s a guilt that you can’t shake away
For coming back - The Vietnam Vet: Birdlace goes to fight as a marine in Vietnam, where he’s the only of the Three Bees to survive, leaving him with Survivor's Guilt and PTSD. When he comes back to the United States of America, he’s met with disdain.
