THE GOAT.

London

THE GOAT, OR, WHO IS SYLVIA?
by Edward Albee

Apollo Theatre
Mon-Fri 7.45pm, Sat 8pm Mat Wed 3pm Sat 5pm
Runs 1hr 35min No interval

TICKETS: 0870 890 1101
www.seetickets.com (both include 24-hour credit card bookings. Booking fee applies)
Review: Timothy Ramsden 19 April

Animal passions in a fine production of a strained conceit.Edward Albee's new play comes from Islington's Almeida to Shaftesbury Avenue with a set incorporating a slice of the Almeida's distinctive brick wall incorporated into the affluent, liberal elegance of 50-year old U.S. medic Martin and wife Stevie's home. Hildegard Bechtler's done them, and us, proud.

As in Albee's best play, Who's Afraid of Virginia Woolf, a marriage gets torn apart - and using the same three-act structure, though here exposition, crisis and aftermath are compressed into an unbroken span of mid-life angst among the elegant vases and statuary. It's an age when the genitals still itch, but the mind may be going (neat false-footing makes Alzheimer's initially seem the issue).

Then Albee pulls a device from Theatre of the Absurd a genre he was linked with early in career. It's also a neat improvisation technique. Develop a scene which would be perfectly realistic, apart from an unlikely subject at its centre. Don't discuss flowers in the garden; chat about an elephant there, as if everybody has one.

Here, Martin's object of desire is Sylvia, and yes, she's a goat. And everything Martin wants in life from sexual partner to reason for living. Once that's accepted, the play's action, and the reactions of Stevie, gay teenage son Billy and friend Ross (who spills the plot beans to the family), follow convincingly.

But there's a struggle between the idea's bold originality and the working-out of emotions that follow a pattern familiar from adultery drama down the decades. The play pursues these without exploring the extent to which Sylvia's so precious because she doesn't answer back, a safe haven from reasoning who'll never kiss and tell.

Mixing realism such as legalities and absolute Absurdity, the play can be funny (though laughs seem to come quickest before the action gets the goat) but prompts questions, such as how Stevie carries out her final revenge.

There's slight over-deliberation in the British actors playing American accents doubtless fine but not quite spontaneous, leaving gesture and expression to seem contrived at times. Though Jonathan Pryce's Martin overcomes this with a detailed portrayal of inward confusion struggling for exposition.

Stevie: Kate Fahy
Martin: Jonathan Pryce
Ross: Matthew Marsh
Billy: Eddie Redmayne

Director: Anthony Page
Designer: Hildegard Bechtler
Lighting: Peter Mumford
Sound: Matthew Berry

2004-04-20 11:18:57