A.R. Gurney’s 1995 play, “Sylvia,” playing from April 24-May 3 at the Russell Hall Main Stage in Gorham, though it treads the fine line between “light” and “lite” comedy, is only partially a play about a dog. In the hands of a more experienced director, it has the potential to be a passable, though somewhat protracted and obvious, comedy about love, jealousy and the ramifications of impending old age.
For better or for worse, USM’s current production opts more for the “lite” approach; student director Joelle Clingerman is apparently more interested in staging a play about the joys of dog ownership. As she asserts in her director’s note: “Dogs are the essence of instinct, raw passion, unwavering loyalty and the epitome of unconditional love.” The production works reasonably well but only tells half the story that Gurney’s play is meant to convey.
In “Sylvia,” Greg (Joshua Adams) and Kate (Tarra Haskell) are a middle class Manhattan couple who are experiencing the early stages of empty nest syndrome. At the start of the play Greg comes home with a stray dog that he finds in the park (played by 3rd year Theater Major Hayley O’Connor). Greg immediately falls in love with Sylvia, while his fastidious, Shakespeare obsessed schoolteacher wife immediately resents the dog’s presence. While Kate’s distaste for Sylvia grows, Greg, who is miserable at his job, becomes increasingly emotionally dependent on the dog.
Finally, Kate applies for a fellowship in England, knowing that going there would mean having to put Sylvia in quarantine for six months. This situation allows her to finally present Greg with an “it’s either me or the dog” ultimatum. Greg agrees to give Sylvia away and make the move, but the couple have a change of heart, leading to an abrupt, maudlin epilogue in which Greg and Kate tell the audience about how Kate learned to (begrudgingly) love Sylvia, putting aside her aspirations in service of her husband’s love for the creature.
Tarra Haskell does a very good job in a largely thankless role. Josh Adams is sweet and likeable as Greg, and, as the dog lover, has the benefit of the audience’s sympathy; though he is clearly the straight man of the play, he is vulnerable and generally above reproach as a character. Likewise, third year theater major Ryan Nash gets to deliver the lion’s share of the play’s jokes, playing two of his three roles in drag, which is always good for a few easy laughs. Haskell, however, is charged with the task of playing bad cop.
Depending on how one looks at it, Kate can appear to either be the voice of reason, or a complete pariah. In many ways, Kate is the victim of Greg’s lack of self awareness; she loves him, but has to subsume her own agenda simply because she doesn’t want to be the one to puncture his blithe outlook on life. Haskell, mostly by virtue of her solid diction and world weary demeanor, manages to split the difference between tragic figure and overbearing battleaxe quite effectively.
Nash brings a genuine talent to his multiple roles as well; even though he is afforded so many opportunities for broad comedy, watching him is entertaining because he is able to lose himself in his characters. Nash is particularly strong while he is playing Kate and Greg’s transgendered marital counselor, Leslie. Cross dressing jokes aside, Nash’s Leslie carries with her an air of pathos along with her stench of insanity. She’s both funny and legitimately creepy at the same time.
All this said, I can’t help but feel that Clingerman is so invested in creating a love letter to man’s best friend that it leads to a production in which the human element of Gurney’s text is largely ignored. She seems to grant Hayley O’Connor free reign in the title role while viewing the human characters as two-dimensional vessels for the self consciously obvious jokes in Gurney’s script. Though this might strike some people as, to quote Clingerman’s foreword again, “A Rompin’ good time!” it is ultimately unfair to both the actors and to the audience, who should be presented with some challenge to their intellect and abilities. Theater certainly doesn’t need to be an exercise in didacticism, and, to be fair, Gurney’s play is partly about the way people relate to their pets. However, it’s also a play about how humans relate to each other, and that reading of “Sylvia” gets short shrift in this production, leading to an incomplete theatergoing experience.