. January 23.2QQ4
THEATER
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Baa-aad love
Albee sends up the American family again in The Goat
by
G ary M o r r is
f “honesty is the best policy,” you wouldn’t
know it from gay playwright Edward A 1 bee’s
blistering latest work, The Goat, or Who Is
Sylvia?, staged through Feb. 22 by Artists
Repertory Theatre.
The G oat won the 2002 Tony Award for
Best Drama, and, judging from this produc-
turn, that’s no surprise. Widely considered
Am erica’s greatest living playwright, Albee
is perhaps best known for Who's Afraid of
Virginia Woolf?, and Portland director Jon
Kretzu has referred to The G oat as Woolfs
twin sister.
Both plays feature a couple in crisis or,
more properly, collapse, as an ever-ratcheting
series of verbal jousts and violent attacks cen
tering on family secrets turns into a veritable
apocalypse. The Goat plumbs some of the least
comfortable depths in the history of main
stream theater in a brutal assault on that
beleaguered institution, the family.
Award-winning architect Martin and his
wife, Stevie, have the kind o f relationship
most couples dream of. They appear to he
true partners— sophisticated, amused and
entranced by each other, relaxed and
loving. They also have an adored gay son,
17-year-old Billy.
A s the play progresses, the slightly
pompous Martin seems increasingly befud
dled, reacting with puzzlement to Stevie’s
sweet provocations. Stevie shrugs off his
confusion, unaware that her husband has a
secret— and it’s a doozy. H e’s having an affair
with a goat named Sylvia.
When Martin’s secret is exposed, the result
ing horror show takes up the play’s remaining
three-fourths.
Albee deserves major praise for successfully
manipulating the mood to serious extremes—
one minute the audience is howling at Stevie’s
commanding dish (“I wonder when he’ll start
cruising livestock?”) and cringing at Martin’s
heartbreaking efforts to maintain his dignity in
the face of unspeakable revelations.
Stevie’s violent reactions— with no attempt
at trying to understand the forces that might
have driven Martin to find a second soulmate
in the bam—shows how precarious a partner
ship can be.
I
T
«
he never-ending effort to bring the Bard
to modem audiences gets a welcome
boost from Hungarian director Robert
Alfoldi’s new version of The Merchant of
Venice by Portland Center Stage.
Merchant is one of Shakespeare’s most
important works— the play that gave us the
immortal “If you prick us, do we not bleed”
speech, the “pound of flesh” conceit and the
ill-fated Jewish moneylender Shylock, one of
literature’s greatest creations.
This reimagined version (with original dia
logue complete) is complex and exhilarating,
transposing the Elizabethan setting to the pre
sent, including a multimedia set, laptops, cell
phones and frenzied, erotic dance routines.
Alfoldi, in Portland to direct, has punched
up the material immediately— setting the first
scene in a smoky disco, directly followed by
Antonio, the merchant (Charles Borland) and
his “special friend” Bassanio (Cody Nickell,
recently seen in P C S’ Outrage) naked in bed
together in a sexy tableau that literally trans
lates a relationship scholars have theorized on
through the years.
Bassanio’s more “official” love interest, Por
tia, is reinvented as a virtual dominatrix— sleek
These characters are all on wildly differ
ent wavelengths under the cozy exterior of
camaraderie, and when truths emerge that
threaten that surface, it's best to run for
cover. Best friend Ross becomes reviled
enemy. Beloved son Billy recoils. And
Martin and Stevie become strangers.
Ever the provocateur, Albee here pushes
into some very extreme sexual areas, but
they’re handled with such authority and
authenticity that it keeps the audience riv
eted— as well as disturbed. T he black-comic
touches throughout make what might be
too off-putting an experience rewarding
indeed.
Artists R ep’s production o f The G oat is
very well acted, with standout performances
by Allen Nause (the com pany’s artistic *
director) as M artin and Luisa Serm ol as
Stevie. Nause incarnates M artin’s mix of
integrity and hopelessness perfectly, while
Serm ol expertly captures Stevie's wounded,
violent persona. Christopher Woolsey and
Gary Powell are accom plished enough as
son and best friend, respectively. *
While The Goat seems overlong at two
hours with no intermission, and Albee ham
mers Some o f the same points to excess, the
overall effect is a kind of exhilaration that
comes from a powerful theatrical experience.
Som e critics have theorized that Albee
intended The G oat as an allegory about
deviance, i.e., homosexuality. M artins
pathos-tinged efforts to maintain his identity
and feelings in the face o f an uncompre
hending society— as represented by Stevie,
Ross and to some extent Billy— will be very
familiar to gay people whose coming-out
process was traumatic.
But the play can also, perhaps more properly,
be read as symbolic of the tragic results of
human weakness and the difficulty, even impos
sibility, of people maintaining love and under
standing in the face of dark truths. JH
Artists Repertory Theatre, 1515 S.W. Alder St.,
runs T he G oat , or W ho I s S ylvia ? through
Feb. 22. Tickets are $l5-$32 from 503-241 '9807.
GARY M orris is a Portland free-lance writer.
A married am ple and their gay son try to deal with (ahem) modern-day infidelity in Edward A1 bee’s
The Qoat, or Who is Sylvia?
Directing Albee’s zoo
on Kretzu, ass<x:iate artistic director at
Artists Repertory Theatre, is a prolific gay
director, with credits including The Laramie
Project, Dinner uith Friends, Love! Vainer!
Compassion! and the Drammy Award-winning
Kelly and Du. He’s no stranger to Edward Albee,
either personally or professionally, having met
him and directed several of his plays. I inter
viewed Kretzu just after the opening of The Goat.
G M : Albee is widely considered the great
est living American playwright. Is his legend
especially challenging for you as a director?
JK : Well, I had the great joy of meeting
Albee. ..and found him to be extremely person
able and charming and truly interested in dis
cussion. Since then I have not been bothered
by the legend but simply honored to have had
the joy of working on his incredible plays.
Gary Morris: What drew you to T he Qoat?
Jem Kretzu: 1 am a huge fan of Albee’s work.. ..
Naturally I was intrigued by all the reports about
The Goat once it opened in New York in 2002.1
went to see it there and was completely blown
away. Here was one of America’s finest playwrights
at the age of 74 still writing at the peak of his pow
ers and still able to shock, astonish, delight and
disgust.. .1 had to direct it.... And after months of
prep time and five weeks of rehearsals, it has not
lost its amazing impact on me.
1 think what attracted me most to the script
were its powerful theatricality, brilliant lan
guage, ra 2 or-sharp wit, fiendishly clever literary
gamesmanship and devastating emotional
impact. You know, what else do you need?
It has been wonderful watching it exert its
particular magic on the audience. It creates a true
frisson in the theater—a crackling electricity. I’ve
seen few plays that equal its ability to cause thun
derous laughter and equally thunderous silences.
G M : The Qoat has been interpreted as a
parable about gayness.
J K : T h e play is a beautiful m editation
on all aspects o f the human heart and soul
and the bottom less well that is love and
sexuality. There is a sensitively written gay
role in the piece, but that is hut one thread
o f the tapestry. To say that the goat repre
sents a coded gay subtext greatly diminishes
and simplifies the often troubling questions
the script brings up.
Venice the menace
Portland Center Stage renders a truly original classic
by
G ary M o r r is
in her tailed
men’s business
suit and, later,
fetishy black slip.
Alfoldi’s
inventiveness
with this materi
al never flags.
On huge triple
screens, Shylock
is interviewed on
“V FN ” (Vene
tian Financial
Network), a
hilariously funny
moment. The
play also makes
The quality of mercy is pretty darned strained in P C S’ The Merchant of Venice
special nods to
Portland— most will recognize the Venetian
video segments of the fetching Bassanio over
Tribune seen in gigantic close-up and outside
looking Portland’s recent snowy skyline. These
G M : T he only other onstage goat I can
recall is in Tennessee Williams’ The Rose
Tattoo. What’s it like directing a goat?
JK : Let’s just say that working with “Sylvia”
has been a delightful experience, and she infus
es her cameo appearance with great dramatic
impact. A s to Mr. Williams’ and Mr. Albee’s
zoological inclusions, I feel that two goats do
not a gay playwritirig fetish make. JF !
kinds of inspired touches come fast and furious,
making the show’s nearly three-hour running
time surprisingly comfortable.
The anti-Semitic angle isn’t downplayed
hut enhanced; Shykx:k’s speeches are the play’s
most powerful and impassioned. When he
finally gets his comeuppance, those who deliv
er it appear as a kind of Nazi force, brutally
assaulting him as much for who he is as for
what he’s done. PCS sardonically comments on
the matter in the background— Shy lock’s
dilemma foregrounding the big screens’ selec
tive rapid-fire images, turning Venice’s sins into
Germany’s, into the United States’.
The acting is first-rate throughout. Wade
McCollum of Hedwig and the Angry Inch and Bat
Boy fame is a virtuoso Launcelot Gobbo, employ
ing verbal and physical trickery to dominate the
stage. Jennifer Erin Roberts brings all the power of
Portia to the fore in a perfectly judged perform
ance. Scott Coopwcxxl’s Shylock electrifies the
stage, with the actor’s measured delivery bringing
all the character’s pathos and passion to life. JH1
T he M erchant of V enice plays through Feb. I
at Newmark Theatre, 1111 S.W. Broadway.
Tickets acre $ 16-$51 from 503-274-6588.