REVIEWS ...
Monday, October 13, 2003
Director, cast clearly convey enigma of 'The Goat'
The limits of tolerance are explored in Edward Albee's play about a man's high dive from success into self-destruction.
By Christine Dolen
cdolen@herald.com
Even when they're sittin' on top of the world, some men and women cannot resist yielding to the temptations that send them plummeting into the bottomless abyss of self-destruction.
Think Rush Limbaugh. Or Eric Benet, the future former Mr. Halle Berry. Or Courtney Love, talented and deeply troubled.
Martin, the doomed "hero" of Edward Albee's The Goat or Who Is Sylvia?, is one of those plunging people.
Albee's Tony Award-winning play, which has just opened at GableStage, is the first head-turning, divisive production of the season. Some may loathe it. Others will adore it and wonder how they could, given Martin's particular manner of self-immolation: bestiality.
But that's exactly what the most provocative theater does, draws you into a world that makes you think, feel, even rage.
Albee, the man who gave us Who's Afraid of Virginia Woolf?, A Delicate Balance and so many other disquieting dramas, has crafted another one in The Goat. Though it just stops after a horrific denouement that seems curiously anti-climactic, the taut 90 minutes that precede it are full of wit, wordplay and a man's unfathomable torching of a beautiful life.
Martin (Bob Rogerson, never better) is a brilliant architect at the top of his game. At 50, he has a still-passionate union with Stevie (Laura Turnbull), a woman whose wit equals and challenges his. Their son Billy (Ryan Capiro) is a bright prep school kid, a gay teen who feels blessed in having supportive parents.
Nothing wrong with that picture. So Martin despoils it by falling deeply, hopelessly in love -- with a goat.
That choice of something so extreme and taboo will lose some people or make them laugh nervously, in places where Albee doesn't invite laughter (though often he does), at the absurdity of it. But that's what he's asking, in his carefully calibrated, enigmatic way: How much can we tolerate?
Director Joseph Adler, a savvy design team and a smart cast, especially Rogerson and Turnbull, clearly get The Goat. Rogerson's Martin is at first all distraction, then agonized confession, then frantic for understanding. Turnbull's Stevie moves from warm affection to fiery fury. Capiro, a kid himself, conveys Billy's intelligence, confusion and pain.
Rich Simone's stunning set looks like the abode of a couple with style and a taste for the primitive in art. Jeff Quinn gracefully lights it, and Michael J. Hoffmann contributes a haunting sound score. Costumer Daniela Schwimmer dresses Turnbull in suede -- a wittily ironic touch given Martin's fatal passion.
Christine Dolen is The Herald's theater critic.
Wednesday, October 15, 2003
Cast shines in boundary-pushing examination of marital crisis
By Jack Zink, Theater Critic
Edward Albee will go to any length to make a point, and society keeps giving him more rope. On the heels of The Play About the Baby, Albee's latest is the 2002 Tony Award-winning comic shocker The Goat, or Who is Sylvia?, about a man who wrecks his marriage and risks his career because of the ultimate infidelity.
That's a perfect attraction for the GableStage, where producing artistic director Joseph Adler gives Albee's provocative dramedy a smart and stylish regional premiere.
The sin is bestiality, for which there is no social redemption. Albee, however, toys with the offense in a genteel debate over relationships and individual behavior. There's no nudity or eroticism, but the vivid, politically incorrect metaphor is a powerful dramatic tool wielded by the GableStage's crackerjack acting quartet.
Bob Rogerson is Martin Gray, a renowned architect who has scored two of his career's biggest successes while turning 50. But Martin is distracted and forgetful, symptoms of his fretting over aging and of something else much more serious. Rogerson handles the role with a woebegone sincerity that is the play's key ingredient. Without it, The Goat, or Who is Sylvia? would be cheesy sex farce, or worse.
The opening scene between Martin and wife Stevie (Laura Turnbull) is a marvelously clever setup with a humorous and subtle tipoff about the homewrecking to come. They're the outwardly perfect couple who have everything in life, including a well-adjusted, homosexual 17-year-old son.
It's best friend Ross (Stephen S. Neal) who senses something truly amiss and prods Martin to talk about his problem. Martin confesses, haltingly, that he's cheating on his wife with a goat named Sylvia. In fact, he's fallen in love with the critter. Ross, aghast, spills the secret.
Albee, of course, has taken the standard midlife crisis theme and pushed it beyond the pale. Both husband and wife realize this and voice it at various times during the play. This is a wrong that cannot be righted, a blight on their relationship leaving her bitter and estranged, him in total isolation. The laughter that speckles the early scenes becomes more and more nervous as the tragedy grinds toward a gory inevitability.
Turnbull, nominated for three Carbonell acting awards for her work last season, gives a fourth award-caliber performance as the wife shaken to the core. Anger, disgust, hurt and incomprehension swirl in a striking performance that never becomes shrill.
Neal also is appealing in the give-and-take with Rogerson both during the initial revelation and in a later confrontation involving Martin's son, Billy (Ryan Capiro) -- no relation to the goat except as a pun.
Rich Simone's keystone design of the couple's apartment is an elegant reflection of the architect's stature and class, complemented by Daniela Schwimmer's costuming, Jeff Quinn's lighting and Michael J. Hoffman's sound design. When all is over, the swank surroundings are stark contrast to the wrecked lives within them.
Jack Zink can be reached at jzink@sun-sentinel.com or 954-356-4706.
