What Are We Left With? — A review of SUDS’ The Goat, or Who is Sylvia?
SUDS’ Slot 1 performance of Edward Albee’s The Goat, or Who is Sylvia? was an hour-and-forty-minute absurdist romp that left the audience in both stitches and a state of moral panic. The play, brilliantly directed by Felix Tonkin and produced by Ruby Scott-Wishart, documents the aftermath of a father’s bewildering extramarital affair, and serves as a hilarious allegory of liberal society. It is this element that SUDS’ production claws at so well, unravelling the philosophical thread that weaves its way through the narrative.
We ostensibly follow Martin (James Wily), a philosophising father with a penchant for livestock, as he is put on trial by his wife Stevie (Ella McGrath), son Billy (Eli Reilly), and best friend Ross (Adrian Hale). But it is really our own language and morality that receives interrogation. The trial, executed by four terrific prosecutors, tests the limits of modern moral language. A most memorable example that stuck with me, delivered by a crazed McGrath, perfectly captures the delusions of trying to verbalise ineffable emotions. The result of which defines Tonkin’s constructed Theatre of the Absurd:
“How I cannot admit it though I know it!? How I cannot deny it because I cannot admit it!? Cannot admit it, because it is outside of denying!?”
Wily’s portrayal of Martin stole the show for me. He brings sincerity to moments of anarchic comic confusion, playing a mere lamb caught up in a tragic misunderstanding. His take on an incredibly perplexing character exhibits his craft, as he distances himself from the reality of the action, and retreats to a world of doe-eyed expressions and melodramatic tangents. Wily’s understanding and subversion of the comic form is immediately clear, and serves as evidence that he will perform on stages far larger than the humble Chippen Street Theatre.
Hale, introduced to us as the crude and slightly oafish Ross, watches the horror of the play unfold in a show of comic mastery. Hale himself does brilliantly to shrink before our eyes, going from a caddish arbiter of comedy to a confused and limp man, mimicking the strained moral authority of liberalism that the play is keen to attack. The biting wordplay between Wily and Hale is a treat, and a real testament to their chemistry. They wittily argue over object-case and subject-case pronouns, and delude themselves of the gaping moral cavities opening up beneath them. Hale’s commanding stage presence made you feel as though you were a subject in his kingdom. You could only watch in awe as he moved around his domain with brazen pomp.
McGrath, provides the dramatic springboard from which the play’s comedic elements leap. She expertly treads the line between sarcasm and rage, while mirroring her audience’s state of shock, and delivers a performance of real dramatic quality. Sardonic, brash, and unwavering, McGrath is the production’s catalyst, passionately driving us towards an emotional climax. Paired with Eli Reilly, who plays their gay (and I promise that is an important detail) son, Billy, a hilariously tragic family dynamic is built up, and torn apart. The pair’s confusion as the family structure breaks down (and boy, are there moments of confusion) is executed with precision, as the two actors try to reconcile familial love with their patriarch’s moral desert, giving us a real treat both intellectually and comically. A moment must be spared for Reilly, who when called upon, committed with extreme hilarity to the role of deeply confused gay son.
The play’s simple mise-en-scène worked for the actors, as the production crew grounded a surreal narrative in dulcet mid-century tones. The set tipped its hat to the ‘Dinner Party Absurdism’ of the 1960s, revelling in middle-class impropriety and charming bourgeois imagery. The familiarity of the stage gives the viewer reason to relate, to understand the ensuing incredulity in terms of their own life. Simple, grounded costumes and props only heightened the growing tension, as a dialogue that begs bizarre questions consistently found itself railing against the peeling facade of traditional respectability. Though this battle returned no victor, the immense collateral damage caused by the indictment of liberal life was most evident in the play’s visual aftermath. A swathe of brilliant props and set pieces launched the final act into comedic anarchy, and a victory lap for the amazing work done by the stage and lighting teams.
When it all breaks down — our language, our relationships, our morality — what are we left with? The Goat doesn’t really give us an answer, rather it mocks our belief that there is anything underlying the social fabric we so dearly trust in. Following the tradition of Beckett, Ionesco, and Camus to make us laugh at the utter incredulity of what we hold to be our foundational beliefs, we come to the absurd conclusion that these beliefs may not be backed up by much. In the postmodern world the characters inhabit, it becomes so much harder to attribute guilt or blame, especially when one is a “good, liberal man” like Martin. Rage, love, passion, shock, are difficult for the characters to separate, as when our moral foundations are stripped away, so too goes our social instruction, leaving us alone in an absurd world— exactly the dynamic this magnificent production captures.