The Goat or Who Is Sylvia? (review)

After twenty years—and preceded by Off-Broadway's Signature Theatre Company's retrospective and critically successful Off-Broadway runs of Three Tall Women, The Play About The Baby, and Tiny Alice—Edward Albee returned to Broadway with The Goat or Who is Sylvia? and won the 2002 Tony Award for Best Play. As the title indicates, this production is ultimately about questions rather than answers. The reception of the play covered the full spectrum from upsetting tragedy to uproarious comedy. David Esbjornson, the director, balanced the production so not to persuade the audience of one particular reading over another.

The title has multiple readings. "The Goat" could be literally a goat in which case the forbidden love spoken of in the play is bestiality. "The Goat" can be the metaphor for sexual appetite, an apt theme for post-Clinton United States. "The Goat" can be a literary allusion to Dionysus, whereby the play can be read as a meditation on theatre itself. The subtitle of the play, Who is Sylvia?, comes from a song in Two Gentlemen of Verona, a comedy about love and betrayal. This Shakespearian reference foreshadows the plot and sets up the normalcy that the tragedy reaffirms. It is not all right for a man to betray his wife by loving a goat; however, it is normal for a man to betray his "woman" with another woman.

TheGoat is a one act structured in three scenes. The first scene highlights an interview with Martin (Bill Pullman), conducted by his best friend, Ross (Stephen Rowe). Martin is celebrating his fiftieth birthday, and he has also just won an astounding competition to design a city of the future, out of nothing, in the heartland of the US. This scene contains the first indications that something other than realism is occuring on stage. There is an allusion to Ibsen's Master Builder and his commission to build the highest steeple; Solness's infatuation with a "troll girl," a forbidden love, also underlies Albee's allusionary context. When the emotions onstage get too real, Albee reminds the audience they are within a theatrical space. Characters are constantly correcting one another's grammar or supplying literary references rather than speaking plainly. It is not the "top" of a hill, for instance, but the "crest" of a hill. An unexplained noise is identified as "The Eumenides" rather than a sound from a kitchen applicance. There is reference made to an old girlfriend known as Big Alice which obviously alludes to Albee's Tiny Alice. The loving, playful banter between husband and wife Stevie (Mercedes Ruehl) is in opposition to the hurtful banter between George and Martha in Who's Afraid of Virginia Woolf? Martin admits to his wife that the scent she smells on him is from his mistress, a goat, but since it is beyond her imaginings Stevie dismisses it. The best friend ellicits the same confession, however, and he takes it seriously.

The second scene takes place after Ross betrays Martin's confidence in a letter to Stevie. The couple's gay son, their "kid" Billy (Jeffrey Carlson), is confused by his father's forbidden love. This scene raises the question of defining forbidden love, which is addressed in a series of lengthy monologues or poignant illustrations. Among the most gripping and graphic are Martin's recollection of the ecstatic moment of sexual congress with Sylvia and a narration of a bestiality anonymous meeting where Martin met others who had sex with "piglets," dogs, or geese as a result of various traumas that left the discussants painfully lonely. Two events that close the play—the story of a father who unknowingly gets an erection while bouncing his baby on his knee and the onstage, fleetingly sexual kiss initiated by Billy toward his father—bring reality the of forbidden love right into Martin's family living room.

The set designed by John Arnine is dressed...