What is Normal?

The Goat, or Who is Sylvia? – Interrobang Theatre

 

Martin is a very successful, highly respected middle-aged architect living in New York City with his wife, Stevie, and his teenage son, Billy. Although lately he’s become forgetful and seems to carry a strange odor about him, Martin’s just won the Pritzker Prize. His best friend, Ross, has come by to film an interview with him for television. Ross notices how distracted Martin seems to be and stops the camera, asking what’s going on? Ross glibly tosses out a query about Martin’s fidelity to Stevie. It’s then that the architect surprises his friend, confessing that he is, indeed, having an affair; but the real shock comes when Martin confesses that his affair is with a goat. When Ross shares this secret with Stevie in a letter, understandably, hell has no fury like this woman who’s been scorned.

Edward Albee’s controversial 90-minute one-act was written near the end of his prolific career. The author of such important Theatre of the Absurd plays as “The Zoo Story,” “Who’s Afraid of Virginia Woolf” and “A Delicate Balance,” penned this play in 2000, opening on Broadway two years later. It earned the Drama Desk and the Tony Award for Best Play and became a finalist for the Pulitzer Prize in Drama. Through this unconventional story, filled with violence and very frank language, Albee depicts what appears, at first, to be a typical, liberal Manhattan family that spirals into crisis. By the play’s graphically horrifying climax, savvy audiences will intuit that they’ve just experienced a contemporary version of a Greek tragedy.

Through this bizarrely tragic story, Albee questions the morality of today’s society. He explores the capriciousness of common standards and conventions that seem to change as the wind blows. He presents a situation in which a man who accepts his son’s homosexuality (although sometimes certain callous remarks slip out) finds nothing wrong with falling in love and having sexual relations with a goat. The playwright’s use of this particular animal may have come from the original Greek definition of the term “tragedy,” meaning “goat song.” Greek theatre, especially tragedy, is connected with the god Bacchus or Dionysus, who’s often represented as a goat. His wild sexual revelries usually occurred in the countryside, the same location as Martin’s affair with Sylvia, the goat.

Dynamically directed by the Jeff-nominated Co-Artistic Director of Interrobang, James Yost, the depth of this tragedy becomes even more personal in Rivendell’s intimate venue. The play hits home as the drama ramps up to its grim, gruesome conclusion. The play occurs in Martin and Stevie’s sunken living room, designed with an eye for style by Kerry Lee Chipman, and with a profusion of props, courtesy of Melanie Hatch. 

The cast features a strong performance by Tom Jansson as Martin, a man who can’t understand why everyone around him finds his liaison with livestock so shocking. His portrayal of this genuinely likable character gradually grows more and more aggravating as this intelligent character becomes increasingly thickheaded, insensitive and flippant. Jansson’s casual, controlled performance is matched and eventually overtaken by the sheer power behind that of Elana Elyce, as Stevie. This talented actress brings honest, raw emotion to her portrayal of a woman whose love is made mockery of and whose anger, revulsion and helplessness can easily be understood by every theatergoer. As Stevie gives in to her true feelings the actress explodes with horror and hatred, making her final moments feel like the climax of “Medea.”

As Billy, Martin and Stevie’s gay, teenage son, Ryan Liddell skillfully portrays a young man who is confused by how his seemingly model family has suddenly been turned upside down in a single moment. When Liddell lashes out at his father and comes to the aid of his mother, the audience can empathize and feels every ounce of his pain and puzzlement. It’s when Billy wearily reconciles with Martin and, perhaps, even begins to forgive him that the audience will receive the second dramatic punch. Playing Ross, the best friend and family confidant, Armando Reyes does an adequate job, but sometimes Reyes comes off as too stiff and impersonal.

This strangely fascinating look illustrates how Absurdist Theatre becomes an unconventional examination of the modern society. Albee’s dramatic experimentations, in particular, look at growing older, sexual relationships and the mythology behind marriage. All of these elements rile and rage in this play, one of the playwright’s final dramas. While this adult play may not be for everyone’s taste, Interrobang’s new production, which is both raw and relevant, makes Edward Albee’s work about taboos, unspoken desires and what’s normal feel as contemporary as today’s news.

Recommended

Reviewed by Colin Douglas      

 

Presented September 7-October 6 by Interrobang Theatre Project at Rivendell Theatre, 5775 N. Ridge Ave., Chicago.

Tickets are available at the box office, by calling 312-219-4140 or by going to www.interrobangtheatre.org.

Additional information about this and other area productions can be found by visiting www.theatreinchicago.com.