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TWO VIEWS OF "SYLVIA" Review
by Paulanne Simmons
Manhattan
Theatre Club Unleashes "Sylvia"
"Sylvia" A.R. Gurney’s comedy, "Sylvia" was first produced by Manhattan Theatre Club in 1995. But the playwright did not have an easy time finding a producer. In fact he is quoted as saying the play had been rejected many times because Sylvia, the dog Greg, a middle-aged Manhattanite, finds in a local park one day, is played as a woman. But anyone who believes equating a charming, if temperamental, dog with a woman is an insult has never loved a dog, or seen this play. Now, the show is making its Broadway premiere, directed by Daniel Sullivan with Matthew Broderick as Greg, Annaleigh Ashford as Sylvia and Julie White as Greg’s wife, Kate. Robert Sella plays three parts: a dog owner Greg meets in the park, a female friend of Kate, and a therapist who carefully cultivates an androgynous appearance so his/her patients can make their own decision on the nature of his/her gender. Broderick, who has made a career of portraying mild-mannered men with a streak of passive-aggression, is perfectly cast as a man who falls in love with a dog while having a mid-life crisis. In fact, Broderick may be a bit like the characters he plays, as he is apparently content to let Ashford steal the show, while Sella get’s all the laughs and White all the sympathy. White is excellent as the much abused voice of reason and a Shakespeare-quoting English teacher. In fact, she’s so likable we forgive her for not wanting a lovable if not perfect dog in her home. Even her not very sympathetic response to her husband’s need for companionship and more meaningful work does not make her a shrew. Sella exhibits great comic gifts, especially in the more outrageous scenes where he appears in drag or becomes an over-the-top caricature of a Manhattan therapist. But the real standout in this play is Ashford. Having won last
season’s Tony, Drama Desk and Outer Critics Circle award for
her portrayal of of the wannabe dancer, Essie Carmichael, in You
Can’t Take It with You, Ashford continues to show off her
comic chops in this physically demanding role. Ashford sits, rolls
over, barks (“Hey, hey, hey”) and rushes to greet (sometimes
inappropriately) her human friends.
Of course, Gurney is cleverly playing on our all too human tendency to anthropomorphize our pets. It’s a well-known fact that most of us (with very little proof) believe our pets understand us, love us and share some of our more noble traits such as loyalty and courage. But he’s also using a man’s love of his dog to teach us a lesson about our need for connections, for love, for understanding. Even more delicious, Gurney shows us that the line between humans and the rest of the animal world is not always as clear as we would like to believe. Sylvia’s lusting after a well-hung dalmatian is both funny and familiar. When she laments the loss of her womanhood after Greg has her spayed, we understand. With the help of David Rockwell’s lovely set that seems to plop Greg and Kate’s apartment right into the neighboring park, "Sylvia" reminds us that we, like our animal friends, are part of the natural world. And as Kate’s favorite author, William Shakespeare wrote, “one man in his time plays many parts.”
“Sylvia”
a shaggy dog story
Written
by A.R. Gurney; directed by Daniel Sullivan. A play one could expect to be very silly turns out to be entertaining, largely due to the smart acting of Annaleigh Ashford as a dog and the quirky light touch of director Daniel Sullivan. My companion was an actress who remembers how hard it was in acting classes to play such anthropomorphic characters. Ashford succeeds brilliantly, being at various times pert, bitchy, sexy and – well anything a human could be. But as I thought about that, I had some concerns.
In this play by A.R. Gurney, first produced off-Broadway in 1995, Sylvia is picked up in Central Park by Greg (Matthew Broderick). Broderick plays the same nerdy, spacey character with the same voice and inflection we have seen in his last umpteen plays, and it’s getting pretty tiresome. But Ashford saves the day. Greg and his wife Kate (the fine Julie White) live on Central Park West. She, shown to be a very competent woman, more together than her husband, is a teacher who is developing a plan to teach Shakespeare to inner city kids. Greg is unhappy at work, has had a fight with his boss and taken off for the park. We learn later that as he sat on a bench, Sylvia jumped into his lap.
He takes Sylvia home and there shows more interest in the dog than in Kate, who becomes understandably annoyed. Especially when Sylvia leaves a puddle on the floor and hairs on the couch. And gets in the way of their life which, now the kids are in college, includes dinners out, concerts, Knicks games etc. Ashford is wonderful as the dog, who tells Greg, “I love you, I think you’re god.” [I thought I hope Sylvia is channeling dogs and not women.] Her bark is “hey, hey, hey!” Her body language is twitchy. When Greg says she is a French poodle, she breaks into “La vie en rose.” Kate routinely gives us lines from Shakespeare. Of course, there will be “Who is Sylvia?”
Kate isn’t the only wife with a problematic spouse. Her Vassar classmate Phyllis (terrifically played by the angular Robert Sella, who also does two male roles) says she is on the wagon and declares that “liquor is the curse of our generation and our ethnic group.” But she has a very good excuse to fall off the wagon. She complains that her husband has adopted a goldfish that he takes into his bathtub. We don’t learn if the fish has a name. A discomforting moment occurs when Sylvia repeatedly nuzzles Phyllis’ crotch, to that lady’s great consternation. When Sylvia wants to sleep in Greg and Kate’s bed, Kate proclaims, “I hate Sylvia. I never thought I could hate anyone except Nixon.” Crotch? Bed? Is Sylvia asserting her sexual power? In a way that puts down those women?.
A major challenge arrives when Kate gets a grant to study in England and the dog can’t come because of the six-month quarantine. But Kate had followed Greg for 20 years, isn’t it his turn? Feminism, right? The more I thought about it, beyond the surface comedy, I realized there is an underlying anti-woman note here — female dog thinks Greg is god, his own wife is wrapped up in her career, Phyllis, played by a man, is flaky, both women seem targets of the dog. Gurney says the play is about the need to connect. Is this really about the human condition, interpreted with the help of a deus ex machina mutt? So that if your job is not satisfying, leave it and find a pooch in the park who thinks you are god? Or whatever that signifies? Is Sylvia his fantasy woman? And how about Kate’s need to connect? I didn’t like the politics of the play, but I did relish Ashford in a performance that is a great model for acting classes.
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