ttention: Important Public Service Announcement.

Members of Salt Lake Acting Company are reportedly engaging in lewd and lascivious acts with farm animals.

Among the suspected culprits are one male named Martin and one female named Sylvia.

Martin is accomplished. Martin is compassionate. Martin is intelligent. Martin is an architect at the peak of his career, he is comfortable with his son’s homosexuality and his wife, Stevie, is the center of his universe.

But who is Sylvia?

Such is the question (and title) of SLAC’s new production, an astonishing rendition of legendary playwright Edward Albee’s Tony Award-winning “The Goat, or Who is Sylvia?” The play is a comic and deeply personal look at the role of devastation and tragedy in modern life. The vehicle of this tragedy: a goat named Sylvia.

The play is performed without intermission by a cast of four, with every scene taking place in the same living-room set. “The Goat” begins lightheartedly, with Martin (SLAC newcomer Kevin Doyle) and Stevie (Michelle Peterson) flirting and joking about Martin’s failing memory. The couple is the picture of marital bliss: compatible, attracted and attractive. They poke fun at their inadequacies and admire their life with affectionate eyes.

Somehow, their conversation veers as Stevie playfully suggests that Martin is having an affair. “Something’s going on, isn’t it?” she gasps over-dramatically.
“Yes! I’ve fallen in love!” Martin plays along.

“I knew it!” Stevie says. “I suppose you’d better tell me.”

“She’s a goat,” Martin deadpans. “Sylvia is a goat.”

Of course, Stevie laughs and leaves the room, sure that her husband is kidding. A goat? How could he be in love with a goat?

But as the play shifts tones from comic to deeply dramatic and moving, it becomes clear that Martin was anything but joking. He has deep feelings for Sylvia—the kind of feelings that can’t just be swept under a rug or a barn floor—and forgotten.

uch is the trajectory of Albee’s play, which is directed at SLAC by Kirstie Rosenfield, who most recently directed last season’s “Wait!”

The play explores how some things in life, once broken, can never be fixed again. About halfway through the production, amid her seemingly insurmountable grief, Stevie makes an analogy between what is happening in her life and a hole being dug underneath her house by her husband.

The hole that Martin is digging, Stevie says, is big enough and deep enough to swallow the entire family and everything they love so deep that they can never climb back out. This is a fitting metaphor, and one indicative of the underlying message Albee must’ve had in mind when he subtitled his play, “Notes Towards a Definition of Tragedy.”

Albee’s choice of a goat as the homewrecker and temptress in his play may seem unnecessarily strange at first, but it makes perfect sense. Let’s face it: Bestiality is not something that most people ever even consider contemplating on a daily basis. So for a successful and happy man to fall in love with an animal—a goat, no less—is perfect because it effectively represents every unforeseeable and inconceivable occurrence of tragedy that could befall an individual.

But this tightrope of comedic morality is one that could not have been successfully traversed without a high-quality cast. A poor cast not dedicated to the production could have made “The Goat” a travesty and a failure. Luckily, SLAC’s acting in this production is spot-on.

In his first SLAC performance, Doyle is incredible. He plays the conflicted Martin with comfort and compassion, making his portrayal of divided love believable and capable of eliciting real emotional response from the audience.

The scene-stealing Peterson is probably the star of the play, with her decent into despair as the embattled Stevie. Her transformation from a content, loving wife to a destroyed, despondent significant other is one of the most believable and well-acted performances in recent SLAC memory.

Also of note is David Fetzer’s treatment of the couple’s conflicted gay son, Billy. As his parents’ lives spiral downward, Fetzer’s character is forced to stand by and endure as everything he knows is, as Stevie puts it, “brought down.” Add this undesirable position to the stress of being a teenage gay male with the supposed, but often insincere, support of his parents and what’s left is a complex and charismatic character played impeccably by a talented young actor.

Overall, “The Goat, or Who is Sylvia?” is one the most solid and well-put-together plays in SLAC’s recent history. As a cohesive piece of controversial and engaging theater, “The Goat,” is a hard act to follow.

The play runs at Salt Lake Acting Company (168 W. 500 North) until May 2. Student discounts are available. To buy tickets or for more information, call ArtTix at 355-ARTS or visit www.saltlakeactingcompany.org.
eryn@red-mag.com