***** The Family Dog

Clubbed Thumb’s summer series concludes with a semi-surreal shaggy-dog delight

Andrew Garman, Talene Monahon, Bruce McKenzie, Ethan Dubin, Brendan George, Jennifer Van Dyck, and Sarah Steele in The Family Dog. Photo: Maria Baranova

Given that New York theatre cognoscenti revere Clubbed Thumb as one of the city’s top hatcheries for inventive new works, the short-run “Summerworks” selections presented at the tiny Wild Project theater (89 seats, not counting aisle cushions) are among the hottest tickets in town. So by the time you read this, the all-too-brief run of The Family Dog by up-and-comer Bailey Williams will probably have sold out. No matter: If there’s any justice left in the world, this extraordinary work should quickly find a new home.

As “Johnny,” the title character, aged and infirm to the point of warranting euthanasia, Bruce McKenzie doesn’t make the slightest play for pathos or verisimilitude, beyond occasionally responding to pats and treats. Laid back and clad in all black like some aging rock star (costumes by Mel Ng), Johnny is just there, doggily accepting affection when offered and occasionally segueing out of canine mode to narrate background details about the family members who have gathered for one last communal goodbye.

Paterfamilias Tom (Andrew Garman) is Johnny’s biggest fan: Like many a male limited in his means of demonstrating affection, Tom goes gaga in the dog’s presence. Wife Tina (Jennifer Van Dyck, increasingly hilarious as she ramps up to her nonpareil acidulous mode) is sympathetic but has her hands full trying to wrangle their four fully grown offspring – a litter, in essence – into enacting some semblance of a normal reunion. Typically enough, all six family members are in constant thrall to their (invisible) phones. Tina, when sidelined from Wordle, snaps again and again, in a crescendo of righteous dudgeon.

The adult children (there’s an oxymoron for you) are not all prizes. “Nickel” (Ethan Dubin) is back living in the basement while trying to kick a gambling addiction (in coming up with a dunderheaded scheme to wean him off the habit, Tom invites extra lashings of Tina’s unbridled wrath). Winona a.k.a .“Whiney” (Sarah Steele), a gay poet and part-time professor, is perhaps the best adjusted in the bunch – and she never lets the others forget it. She bonds well with her low-key, subtly witty, also gay youngest sibling, Fran (Brendan George), and helps to shore up their lost soul of a sister, Jillian (Talene Monahon), who recently rebuffed a marriage proposal for reasons that will soon become clear.

It’s a big, rambunctious cast for such a tiny stage (Colleen Murray’s set consists of a a couch bathed by Masha Tsimring’s occasionally near-funereal lighting). In this minimal space, tightly managed by director Tara Ahmadinejad, every intra-familial micro-aggression will have you rapt and laughing. Though packed with quirky particulars, Williams’s script also contains – buried deep like an especially treasured bone – universal truths about how family members manage to come to terms with one another’s flaws and agendas.

Details: The Family Dog, to June 30