Skip to main contentMartin's life appears ideal: At 50 he's a renowned architect. His home life seems equally satisfying; his wife, Stevie, is devoted to him, as is his teenage son, Billy. It's the American dream realized, a good "straight line through life." Then he goes and fucks a goat.
Edward Albee's The Goat, Or Who Is Sylvia? is a provocative mess of a play that's interested in testing the limits of tolerance (as well as love and friendship). It's also a play about trying to find forgiveness through sympathy and sacrifice. Like the twinned goats in Leviticus, Sylvia (the caprine temptress of the title) serves as both scapegoat and sin offering for the disaster that Martin brings down upon his family. Sylvia is also a symbol for all of the inexplicable animalistic urges that have ever plagued us--the inappropriate thoughts and lusts that crop up unbidden. "What," asks Albee, "has been your Sylvia?" In fact, Sylvia might not even be Martin's true "Sylvia," as he may be more tortured over his goatishly named son, Billy.
Albee has subtitled his play "Notes Toward a Definition of Tragedy." Tragedy is from the Greek Tragoidia, meaning "goat song" (early drama, as a Dionysian rite, ended with a goat sacrificed). In casting his marvelously jaundiced eye again upon this herd-minded country of ours that can never quite measure up to its own tragedy, Albee has created an ancient context into which we can place ourselves.
Unfortunately, this is not one of Albee's best pieces of writing. The deadly wryness and excoriating character studies one has come to expect from him are little in evidence. Embedded within the play are two appropriate, though unintentional, self-criticisms. After Martin weathers a harangue from his friend Ross, he snaps, "You say 'fuck' a lot." So does Albee, along with those other slops from the American vernacular: "Shut up," and that sullen, cheap nail in the coffin of discourse, "Whatever." What passes for wit here is a near parody of Albee's famous wordplay: Billy yells "semanticist" after Martin corrects a metaphor. In fact, all the characters are continually correcting each other's grammar. So why would they employ the impoverished vocabulary above for their dialogues?
The good news is that Jon Kretzu's production moves effortlessly, and he's tugged good performances from his cast. As Martin, Allen Nause introduces dolefulness a tad early, but has otherwise created a fully realized person. However odious Martin's "crime," Nause masterfully ensures that neither pity and contempt is felt for him. Martin is a truly sympathetic character.
As Stevie, Luisa Sermol has a chance to sell her dramatic chops, though she often overplays the comedy. Her reading of the letter that sets the drama in motion is superbly played, but Sermol, too often, seems to be playing to the house. Christopher Woolsey's Billy is excellently done, while Gary Powell provides The Goat's gruffness.
A dim lighting design by Jason Winslow and Lawrence Larsen's set done in Goodwill Moderne do not detract from the fact that this is one of ART's finest efforts in ages.
Artists Repertory Theatre, 1516 SW Alder St., 241-1278. 7 pm Tuesdays-Thursdays, 8 pm Fridays-Saturdays, 2 and 7 pm Sundays. Closes Feb. 22. $15 (students)-$32.
"And the goat shall bear upon him all their iniquities unto a solitary land."
--Leviticus 16:22
WWeek 2015