THE DOGS traces the stories of an American theatre director and a British tour guide writer two decades after the Romanian revolution. The two plot lines are intertwined to tell a dark, absurd and picaresque tale of the struggle of the "new Europe." While the theatre director is trying to stage a play with Conservatory acting students about an apocalypse in New York City, he is confronted with holdovers from an authoritarian past, a bureaucracy riddled with hidden competing interests, both of which leave the acting students at the conservatory profoundly sick and anxious. Everywhere he turns the refrain from the dark years "It can't be done" dogs him. The stage becomes a microcosm of the whole country and its anxieties and fears. He makes friends on a train with the British travel guide writer, who is exploring the country to get to know the cultural scene. In doing so the writer gets bound up in a prostitution recruitment ring run by a former member of the secret police. While he becomes involved with a prostitute, he develops an unlikely relationship with the thug entrepreneur who has him beaten -- but then uses him as a trusted sounding board for his vision of making it in the resort and tourism business. THE DOGS, which has been seen as a follow up to Caryl Churchill's MAD FOREST about the Romanian revolution, is an epic play, written in 19 scenes, constructed as theatrical vignettes. Aside from professional stages, it uses imaginative multiple casting, and is ideal for university groups providing substantial roles for many young performers -- and alternative theatre spaces that are "stripped down.