Does that old adage “A dog is man’s best friend” hold true, if said dog threatens the man’s marriage of 22 years? Come judge for yourself as director Brook Hall and The LAB Space present their third play of the season, AR Gurney’s delightful, entertaining and thought-provoking comedy Sylvia.
The play opens as Greg (Maurice Harrington) returns home with a stray, street-smart dog Sylvia (Tiffany Tsai, 蔡天芸) that he found (or she found him?) in the park. Greg is facing a mid-life crisis. He is at odds with his boss; his career is going nowhere and his marriage to Kate (Sarah Brooks) seems mired in the humdrum period that often follows empty-nest syndrome. He definitely needs someone to talk to and show him affection.
Kate, on the other hand, is ready to enjoy her empty-nest freedom. Now she can finally focus on her career as an English teacher. A dog in the house? No, thank you. Her dog-raising days ended when the kids left home. But Greg pleads, and she agrees to “try it for a few days” and the play is off and running.
Photo Courtesy of Fabian Hamacher
With wit and humor, Gurney quickly takes the audience on a romp full of hijinks, fantasy and enlightenment as we examine the imagined anthropomorphic relationships and feelings with which we humans credit and endow our pets.
STELLAR CAST
Hall has chosen his cast well. Both Harrington and Brooks rise to the challenging task of playing a caring couple caught in a potentially boring situation without boring the audience. Greg, like a frustrated Walter Mitty alternately rhapsodizes on the “call of the wild” and not letting anything come between a “man and his dog” while at the same time also admitting he is “sick.”
Kate, as the kind wife who has never really hated anyone (except maybe Nixon) now finds she must, of all things, square off against a dog, one she appropriately calls Saliva. With a teacher’s background, she portrays life as a heroic drama and ends several scenes with quotes from Shakespeare.
Strong backup comes from the versatile fourth member of the ensemble, John Brownlie, who takes on multiple roles. First he is Tom, the philosophical owner of Bowser (dogs should never have female names) who advises Greg to have Sylvia spayed. Next he is Phyllis, Kate’s recovering alcoholic friend who quickly goes from water to scotch when pursued by the skirt-sniffing Sylvia. And finally Brownlie plays transgender Leslie, the shrink who needs a shrink. After several double-entendre dialogues with Greg who keeps Leslie guessing as to whether he is talking about his wife or Sylvia, Leslie advises Kate to get a gun and “shoot Sylvia right between the eyes.”
DOG WITH HUMAN QUALITIES
But what about Sylvia? Gurney takes Sylvia far beyond traditional dog roles like Old Yeller, Lassie and even Snoopy. Is she just a dog, or more? Is Greg the real one in need who credits her with too much feeling?
When Gurney finished this play in 1995, shocked feminist critics said no woman would ever play the role of a dog. How wrong they were, or how times have changed. This is a plumb role; one that allows an actress a wide range of emotions and Tsai plays it with full abandon. Seductive, playful, hyperactive, effervescent, eager to investigate and eager to please — all those things we love and sometimes are bothered by in a dog.
With costume changes that accent these many sides, Tsai acts oblivious to everything outside a dog’s moods — even the audience. She relishes her emotions, whether she is ragging on cats, being in heat or loving Greg even after she is spayed. Sarah Jessica Parker, who played the original starring role of Sylvia, went on to Sex and the City. And Tsai? Whatever is ahead, she will definitely be a part of Taiwan theater.
The LAB Space is the only full-time English-language theater in Taiwan, and this show receives a definite thumbs-up. It is quality theater, one that continues the excellent tradition established in their previous shows, Santaland Diaries and Tuesdays with Morrie.
It’s best to get there early. With open seating and cast members sometimes rolling on the floor, the better seats are in the first few rows. There are Chinese subtitles, but language is PG-13, meaning you may want to leave the kids at home. In the spirit of animal care, The LAB Space wants audiences to be aware of The Sanctuary, an animal-rescue organization.
■ Remaining shows are tomorrow to Sunday, 8pm at The LAB Space (實演場), 3F, 9, Beitou Rd Sec 1, Taipei City (台北市北投路一段9號3樓). Tickets are NT$550, available through accupass.com/go/sylvia or at the door
In late October of 1873 the government of Japan decided against sending a military expedition to Korea to force that nation to open trade relations. Across the government supporters of the expedition resigned immediately. The spectacle of revolt by disaffected samurai began to loom over Japanese politics. In January of 1874 disaffected samurai attacked a senior minister in Tokyo. A month later, a group of pro-Korea expedition and anti-foreign elements from Saga prefecture in Kyushu revolted, driven in part by high food prices stemming from poor harvests. Their leader, according to Edward Drea’s classic Japan’s Imperial Army, was a samurai
The following three paragraphs are just some of what the local Chinese-language press is reporting on breathlessly and following every twist and turn with the eagerness of a soap opera fan. For many English-language readers, it probably comes across as incomprehensibly opaque, so bear with me briefly dear reader: To the surprise of many, former pop singer and Democratic Progressive Party (DPP) ex-lawmaker Yu Tien (余天) of the Taiwan Normal Country Promotion Association (TNCPA) at the last minute dropped out of the running for committee chair of the DPP’s New Taipei City chapter, paving the way for DPP legislator Su
It’s hard to know where to begin with Mark Tovell’s Taiwan: Roads Above the Clouds. Having published a travelogue myself, as well as having contributed to several guidebooks, at first glance Tovell’s book appears to inhabit a middle ground — the kind of hard-to-sell nowheresville publishers detest. Leaf through the pages and you’ll find them suffuse with the purple prose best associated with travel literature: “When the sun is low on a warm, clear morning, and with the heat already rising, we stand at the riverside bike path leading south from Sanxia’s old cobble streets.” Hardly the stuff of your
April 22 to April 28 The true identity of the mastermind behind the Demon Gang (魔鬼黨) was undoubtedly on the minds of countless schoolchildren in late 1958. In the days leading up to the big reveal, more than 10,000 guesses were sent to Ta Hwa Publishing Co (大華文化社) for a chance to win prizes. The smash success of the comic series Great Battle Against the Demon Gang (大戰魔鬼黨) came as a surprise to author Yeh Hung-chia (葉宏甲), who had long given up on his dream after being jailed for 10 months in 1947 over political cartoons. Protagonist