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By BOB NOCEK; Times Leader Staff Writer
Monday, April 07, 1997 Page: 2A
SCRANTON — As dogs go, Sylvia can take some getting used to.
She’s rambunctious to excess, tackling visitors and bounding about the
house.
“Sylvia,” the play by A.R. Gurney, is slightly more restrained. But it,
too, can take some getting used to.
The Northeast Theatre Ensemble’s production of “Sylvia” is well-acted and
not beyond enjoying. But this play requires a little patience and a
willingness to accept “Sylvia” for its true self — a simple little comedy
that pretends to be more sophisticated than it really is.
Perhaps a love of overly-playful pooches would help too, although that’s
doubtful, since the canine in question isn’t really a dog at all.
Sylvia is played furtively by Maura Malloy, who keeps the action moving
even when the story isn’t. When she sees a cat passing through the park,
Malloy explodes into a fit reminiscent of Linda Blair’s worst moments in “The
Exorcist.” She and director Zeve Ben-Dov have clearly put some work into her
characterization, which comes complete with a few dog-like physical mannerisms
best left undescribed here.
Also left unprinted will be Gurney’s forced vulgarity. The F-word and a few
lesser ones happen a little too frequently in “Sylvia,” and it cheapens the
work. This is said with the realization that even the most offensive words are
sometimes necessary for realism’s sake, but this play doesn’t need it.
It is, after all, a sort-of drawing-room comedy about a middle-aged
couple’s troubles when Greg (Kevin Kean Murphy) brings home Sylvia, a dog he
found in the park on an afternoon when he should have been at work.
His wife Kate (Holly Hudson) doesn’t like Sylvia from the start, and things
grow only more strained as Greg falls madly in love with his four-legged
friend.
Hudson is suitably distant in the face of her husband’s obsession and the
dog’s intrusion, explaining to a friend that she hates Sylvia.
“I never thought I could hate anybody but Nixon,” she says with ice in her
voice.
Murphy makes Greg mindless enough about Sylvia to sympathize. When he sits
down in a marriage counselor’s office and spends 10 minutes talking about the
dog, you want Kate to leave the idiot.
The therapy session is among the play’s highlights, thanks to Victor
Barbella’s fun take as Leslie, a new-age, gender-impaired counselor caught
somewhere between Barbra Streisand and the Little Dutch Boy.
In fact, all three of Barbella’s parts are memorable, particularly as
Kate’s friend Phyllis, who winds up pinned under Sylvia on the sofa.
Were the rest of the play willing to give itself over to the farcical feel
of those scenes, “Sylvia” might be a bit more palatable.
But it surrounds the lightest moments with a desire to be full of
psychology and intellect.
And when your lead character is screaming obscenities at an imaginary
pussycat and trying to get overly friendly with a guest’s leg, sophistication
can be tough to come by.
Review