‘Living With the Tiger’ focuses on psyches of tiger-owning Americans

In North Carolina, it’s legal to own a tiger — but not a chipmunk — as a household pet.

This fact is one of the opening lines of “Living With the Tiger,” Durham-based theater company Haymaker’s first production.

The show, part of the “Other Voices” series at Manbites Dog Theater in Durham, explores the psyches of the thousands of Americans who privately own tigers.

Company member Akiva Fox said he got the idea for the production after seeing an Animal Planet special in which a SWAT team had to scale a wall to tranquilize a tiger living in an apartment.

From the program, he learned there are actually more tigers in private homes in the United States than there are in the wild.

“We wanted to give an audience the experience of people who want this experience of living with a tiger,” he said.

The play was collectively devised by Fox, Emily Hill and Dan VanHoozer, who comprise the company.

They gathered research by interviewing tiger owners and visiting the Carolina Tiger Rescue in Pittsboro.

Keith Gavigan, education director at Carolina Tiger Rescue, helped the company learn about tigers and the people who own them.

He said the reserve often receives wildcats that have been kept as pets.

“You see people who have them for 10 years and love them, and one day they injure someone,” he said.

From Haymaker’s research emerged a story about two people whose only commonality is a desire to own a tiger.

Susie, played by Hill, is a career-obsessed woman who, after seeing a tiger roaming in the street, abandons her working life and engages in a vaguely sexual dance with the jungle beast.

VanHoozer sweatily portrays Pat, who feels a connection to his deceased father through a tiger heart in a jar.

He later decides to acquire a tiger to inflate his sense of self-worth.

But throughout the production, no tigers physically appear — their presence is only evoked by the actors.

VanHoozer is particularly successful in miming being mauled by a tiger as he violently thrashes into walls of boxes.

Fox said that the company also drew inspiration from texts like “Moby-Dick” and Alexis de Tocqueville’s “Democracy in America.”

In one scene, VanHoozer’s character uses the de Tocqueville text to support his theory that “tigers are the new way to get better.”
This line ignites his spirited but nervous rant touting tiger ownership as a means to achieving the American dream.

“There’s something very American about this,” Fox said. “This focus on dreams is what makes us great, but it also can be sort of a problem.”

The production drives the American theme home with a series of U.S. president impersonations and a Johnny Cash-heavy soundtrack.

Though Haymaker’s fresh theatrical style will surely attract audiences, “Living With the Tiger” ends with a whimper rather than a bang.

Rather than grow, its characters merely dig themselves into holes and choose to take residence there.

But the clever story addresses an issue whose relevance is under the radar, and that alone makes the show worth seeing.

Contact the Arts Editor at arts@dailytarheel.com.