Storyline: A fifty-something man whose job
has become dull, whose marriage has become routine and whose home has become
an empty nest, finds a stray dog in the park and brings her home. The dog,
"Sylvia," provides what so many pet fanciers claim they do, unquestioning
love, acceptance and devotion. His wife, however, wants no part of a new pet
in their new high rise or their new urban lifestyle. The difference between
this and any other devoted pet story is that the pet is played by a pretty
young woman.
Playwright A. R. Gurney's work is marked by
taking a theatrical concept to its full potential: an exchange of Love
Letters documents a life-long love, The Dining Room offers an "if
the walls had ears" story of an antique set of dining room furniture, The
Fourth Wall literally has the world facing the audience. Again with
Sylvia, he takes a simple notion to its logical conclusion, and, in the
process, illuminates his favorite subject - family life in the world of
WASP's. Sylvia combines the threads of mid-life crisis and empty
nesting with the devotion between pet and owner.
Swinehart has an agreeable presence on stage
and uses her considerable charm to good advantage. Her Sylvia is a very
smart dog, fully conscious of the danger that being rejected by her new
family would pose. (She knows what happens to strays taken to the pound!)
She's as manipulative as any human in her non-sexual seduction of the man
who has taken her in. As that man, Doyle plays the entire evening without
much in the way of progression. As written, Gurney's script seems to lay the
basis for an ever deepening attachment between man and dog, but Doyle seems
as smitten with the pooch in the first scene as he does in the last. This
robs the play of a sense of progress. Hayes does a better job of showing
some progress and variation in her ultimately futile resistance.
Supporting roles are handled well. Bill
Kitzerow is effective in his two scenes as a fellow dog owner at the dog run
area of Central Park, and Summer Donaldson does a fine job with the role of
the wife's friend. Lenehan is sharp and funny as the counselor. Dick La
Porte's attractive set design uses the large space of the Alden's stage
well, but puts the pace of the evening at risk repeatedly by relying on the
theater's slow hydraulic system to fly two walls up to reveal the park
setting and then lower them to create the apartment. It gets to the point
that the audience watches the slow rise and fall of the set pieces, loosing
concentration on the story.
Written by A. R. Gurney. Directed by Terry
Yates. Design: Dick La Porte (set) Emily Besuden (properties) Bob Zeigler
(lights) Jerry Bonnes (sound) Traci J. Brooks
(photography) Wendy Granat Humphries (stage manager). Cast: Summer
Donaldson, William Doyle, Barbara Hayes, Bill Kitzerow, Rebecca Lenehan,
Lisa Swinehart. |
|
July 11 - 26, 2008
Evita
The story of Eva Peron, wife of Argentina’s Juan Peron, features Tim Rice’s
book and lyrics and Andrew Lloyd Weber’s music. They wrote it following the
success of Jesus Christ Superstar and Joseph and the Amazing
Technicolor Dreamcoat. |
