This article first appeared in the St. Louis Beacon, Jan. 28, 2013 - Playwright Edward Albee is a master at revealing the animal instincts inside us all. St. Louis Actors’ Studio has masterfully executed Albee’s work in its rendition of “The Goat or Who is Sylvia?”
Albee rose to prominence with another question, not about a goat but a “Woolf.” “Who’s Afraid of Virginia Woolf?” a tale of two miserable married couples, was, in 1963, considered by the Pulitzer Committee to be so depraved that it withheld the prize rather than let the drama panel give it to Albee.
In 2002, “The Goat” would also shock and delight Broadway audiences before being nominated for a Pulitzer and winning a Tony. Here in St. Louis, theater-goers have just one more week to witness STLAS's powerful staging at the Gaslight Theater in the Central West End.
The gist:
The world of wildly successful architect Martin (John Pierson) is blown apart when he falls in love with a goat, whom he names Sylvia. When his best friend Ross (William Roth) tells his wife, Stevie (Nancy Bell), her life is shattered too. Their son Billy (Scott Anthony Joy) is collateral damage.
Under the direction of Wayne Salomon, the couple is established as talented verbal jousters, splitting linguistic hairs but rarely participles.
About whether he is “happy” sitting in a particular white chair in their sleek living room, Martin quips, “Did I sit there and did contentment bathe me in its warm light?” To which Stevie deadpans, “Yes; contentment fell; you sat there and I watched it bathe you in its warm light. I’ve got to go.”
Ross reveals Martin’s devastating affair in a letter. Now, the “eff-yous” fly along with the clever barbs -- so do sharp-cornered framed photos and fragments of objects d’art, when words aren’t enough to express Stevie’s rage, humiliation and hurt. On the second row, I reflexively duck even before a ceramic chunk actually flies in front of me.
Talk about breaking the fourth wall.
Also broken are their son Billy’s vision of his childhood and Stevie’s heart. The pain brings Bell to her knees and my hand to my throat. But Stevie’s mascara-and-tear-stained face isn’t the only sympathetic one. Albee (and Pierson) manage to make Martin a character worth our concern as well, and a final interaction with his son redeems him further.
But before it’s all over, there will be blood.
Another morsel:
As the couple argue, Stevie implores Martin to tell her more, to “vomit it all up.”
Stevie: “I’m naked on the table; take all your knives! Cut me! Scar me forever!”
Martin: “Before or after I vomit on you?”
Stevie, emphatically explaining: “Women in deep woe often mix their their metaphors."
