SOURCE: Bacalzo, Dan. Review of Dogeaters, by Jessica Hagedorn. Theatre Journal 53, no. 4 (December 2001): 642-43.

In the following review, Bacalzo offers high praise for the March 2001 Public Theater production of Dogeaters, asserting that the stage production successfully transforms the broad-ranging novel into “a vibrant theatrical landscape.”

Jessica Hagedorn's 1990 novel, Dogeaters, is not the easiest work to adapt for the stage. Set in the Philippines during the Marcos regime, this epic book is filled with numerous characters that have detailed personalities and eccentricities. The novel is also infused with a Filipino pop culture aesthetic that draws from American movies, local radio soap operas, and a celebrity-driven political system. Hagedorn's own stage adaptation successfully transforms this mix into a vibrant theatrical landscape.

The author takes two minor characters from her novel—radio and screen stars Barbara Villanueva and Nestor Noralez—and transforms them into Brechtian narrators. Hagedorn ingeniously uses the book's...