Only a playwright of Edward Albee's stature (and reputation) could get away with a play such as The Goat or, Who Is Sylvia? Known for his preoccupation for "pushing the envelope" with previous efforts such as The Zoo Story and, of course, Who's Afraid of Virginia Woolf?, Albee focuses here on the subject of love. What are the limits of forbidden love?, he seems to ask in this riveting drama.
The play revolves around an architect at the height of his career. Having just won a major prize and been selected for a major commission, the architect realizes, at 50, that something in his life is missing. That "something" turns out to be a goat. Yes, a real-life, barnyard animal that the architect has, for some unnamed reason, named "Sylvia." When the so-called "affair" is revealed to the architect's best friend and then to his own family, the results are what you'd expect. As each person gets the news, he or she goes through phases of laughter, horror, disgust and bewilderment.
Martin, the architect (played here by Milwaukee Repertory Theater Artistic Director Joseph Hanreddy), is oddly uncommunicative about the nature of his attraction. "It just is," he tells his faithful wife, Stevie (Laura Gordon). "Well, gee," she replies, "we all think we are prepared for jolts along the way ... (by our age) we think we can handle anything. But cruising livestock!!!??!" This gets an intended laugh from the audience. Even as Martin reveals the bizarre details of his emotional encounters with the goat, Stevie is physically dismantling the family's living room. As obscenities are traded between husband and wife, the glass objets in the tastefully appointed living room also go flying. Albee displays his well-earned reputation for excoriating dialogue. (It is understandable that the play is performed without an intermission, since who would want to return for Act II?)
Aside from the couple's best friend, Ross (Jonathan Gillard Daly), the news also shatters the couple's 17-year-old son, Billy. While any teenager would find such news baffling, it is especially troubling to a gay teen struggling with his own sexual identity. Hanreddy underplays Martin to the point of irritation (this is doubtless the director's intent). This allows Laura Gordon plenty of room to vent her understandable anger at the situation. This reviewer can't call which phrase she utters most: "How could you?" or "I'll kill you."
Whatever. Gordon releases a tornado of emotions that is chilling to watch. This train wreck of a marriage benefits from excellent performances throughout. The exquisitely detailed set is among the finest seen in the Stiemke's intimate performing space. It's almost too perfect looking to be trashed by Stevie, but that's precisely the point.
