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Director, cast clearly convey
enigma of `The Goat'
The limits of tolerance are explored in Edward
Albee's play about a man's high dive from success
into self-destruction.
BY CHRISTINE DOLEN
Even when they're sittin' on top of the world, some
men and women cannot resist yielding to the temptations
that send them plummeting into the bottomless abyss
of self-destruction.
Think Rush Limbaugh. Or Eric Benet, the future former
Mr. Halle Berry. Or Courtney Love, talented and deeply
troubled.
Martin, the doomed ''hero'' of Edward Albee's The
Goat or Who Is Sylvia?, is one of those plunging people.
Albee's Tony Award-winning play, which has just opened
at GableStage, is the first head-turning, divisive
production of the season. Some may loathe it. Others
will adore it and wonder how they could, given Martin's
particular manner of self-immolation: bestiality.
But that's exactly what the most provocative theater
does, draws you into a world that makes you think,
feel, even rage.
Albee, the man who gave us Who's Afraid of Virginia
Woolf?, A Delicate Balance and so many other disquieting
dramas, has crafted another one in The Goat. Though
it just stops after a horrific denouement that seems
curiously anti-climactic, the taut 90 minutes that
precede it are full of wit, wordplay and a man's unfathomable
torching of a beautiful life.
Martin (Bob Rogerson, never better) is a brilliant
architect at the top of his game. At 50, he has a
still-passionate union with Stevie (Laura Turnbull),
a woman whose wit equals and challenges his. Their
son Billy (Ryan Capiro) is a bright prep school kid,
a gay teen who feels blessed in having supportive
parents.
Nothing wrong with that picture. So Martin despoils
it by falling deeply, hopelessly in love -- with a
goat.
That choice of something so extreme and taboo will
lose some people or make them laugh nervously, in
places where Albee doesn't invite laughter (though
often he does), at the absurdity of it. But that's
what he's asking, in his carefully calibrated, enigmatic
way: How much can we tolerate?
Director Joseph Adler, a savvy design team and a
smart cast, especially Rogerson and Turnbull, clearly
get The Goat. Rogerson's Martin is at first all distraction,
then agonized confession, then frantic for understanding.
Turnbull's Stevie moves from warm affection to fiery
fury. Capiro, a kid himself, conveys Billy's intelligence,
confusion and pain. As Martin's lifelong pal Ross,
Stephen Neal just doesn't navigate the currents of
Albee's language as artfully as the others.
Rich Simone's stunning set looks like the abode of
a couple with style and a taste for the primitive
in art. Jeff Quinn gracefully lights it, and Michael
J. Hoffmann contributes a haunting sound score. Costumer
Daniela Schwimmer dresses Turnbull in suede -- a wittily
ironic touch given Martin's fatal passion.
Fuente:
The Miami Herald
Diciembre - 2003
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