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If you think The Goat or, Who Is Sylvia? is about a guy who has sex with a goat, you're about 1 percent correct. Yes, that's the premise playwright Edward Albee constructed for this exceptional comedy. But though he parlays the act of screwing a barnyard animal into a couple of very funny lines (my favorite has to do with an ugly man and a goose), the precise identity of who's being screwed is not all that significant. In other words, the play isn't about man/goat sex, but rather the fear and wonder of finding ourselves in unmapped territory.
One of the wonderful elements in Albee's tragic comedy is that he never besmirches the unlikely affair between Martin and the doe-eyed Sylvia. Like the pedophile Uncle Peck in Paula Vogel's How I Learned to Drive, Martin is neither beast nor saint. He's simply an award-winning architect who, at 50, experiences what he calls an "epiphany." "There is nothing to relate it to," Martin says. "It can't have happened, but did."
Not surprisingly the audience initially reacts to Martin's affair (which he reveals in a terrific scene with his oldest friend Ross, played magnificently by Tom Teti) with giggles and adolescent smirks. His wife Stevie (the capable Elizabeth Norment) dismisses the news with a chuckle. But this is Albee's intention. It's only when we're feeling smug and morally superior that the play delivers its devastating kick to the heart. In an instant Goat moves from light comedy to Greek tragedy.
Certainly some in the audience may be disgusted by Martin's activities (though the Philadelphia audience seemed vastly more accepting than its New York counterpart). But even for highly disapproving theatergoers, it's impossible not to be moved by the depth of Martin's passion and the joy this newfound love brings him.
Director Tim Vasen's production at the Philadelphia Theatre Company is far more direct than the satirical New York original, yet his approach serves the play almost as well. Unlike Bill Pullman's marvelously sneaky portrayal of Martin in the original production, John Glover's intensity is frightening. When he refers to his gay son Billy (a very fine Bradford William Anderson) as a "fucking faggot," his vehemence surprises even himself. The extraordinary scene between the two men blurs the lines between lust, familial love and domestic violence.
Billy describes the Gray household as having been blissfully normal. It's the disruption of this happy normalcy that scares them--Martin most of all. But unlike Martin, who feels inexorably drawn into this most unique--and for him, wonderful--relationship, contemporary society demands constancy and an allegiance to the status quo from its citizens.
The Goat is ultimately a play of the primal forces of rage, love and desire. It's a bewildering, bewitching experience, an absurdist masterpiece for the 21st century. Philadelphia Theatre Company has had an inconsistent season. But as it showed in recent years with The Laramie Project and Wit, when it comes to staging a contemporary tour de force, few theater companies in the city are its equal.
The Goat or, Who Is Sylvia? Through June 20. $30-$45. Plays & Players Theatre, 1714 Delancey St, 215.569.9700. www.phillytheatreco.com
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