Erik Strauts’ production of Sylvia for The Stirling Players is a hit.
Written by A.R. Gurney and premièring ‘off Broadway’ in 1995, Sylvia is the funny, and at times touching story of a family adopting a dog and the trouble this causes. The family is married couple Greg and Kate who are both at turning points in their careers. The kids have grown up and left home, Greg is struggling to maintain his motivation at work and is questioning his self-worth, and consequently his job has become precarious, whereas Kate’s career is about to take off. One day Greg is is out for a walk and instead of finding himself he finds a stray dog whose tag says her name is Sylvia. Greg takes Sylvia home with every intention of keeping her, but Kate is not at all keen. Eventually, Sylvia becomes a wedge in Greg and Kate’s relationship, and they seek counselling to get through it, but the truth is that Greg and Sylvia’s strong bond is a symptom of all the things that are absent in his life and his relationships with others, especially his wife. It sounds heavy, but this play is in fact light and very funny entertainment, but it has a sting every now and then which gives paws …er, pause for thought!
It sounds a simple enough story, but what makes this play zing is that Sylvia is played by a person, and Sylvia speaks and has conversations with her owners, which are are riotously funny and oh so sweet. Dog lovers and dog owners in the enthusiastic opening night audience audience enthusiastically lapped it up.
The success (or otherwise) of the play turns principally on the acting chops of the actor playing Sylvia, and in Dora Stamos we have a winner. Stamos shows understanding of the psychology of dog-human relationships and plays the role with exquisite gesture, physicality, comic timing and palpable emotion. The relationship between Sylvia and Greg is pivotal to the emotional arc of the play, and Scott Battersby plays Greg with fundamental sincerity and a dash of goofiness that makes the relationship work. Importantly, Battersby carefully reveals Greg’s insecurities without overplaying the role thereby maintaining director Strauts’ well-chosen and deliberate light touch. Having said that, because Kate is played by Anita Zamberlan Canala in a similarly understated way, the chemistry between Kate and Greg is a little obscured and the several occasions where heightened emotional responses might have been expected were instead played with a more even temperament. Zamberlan Canala convinced the audience that taking in Sylvia was likely a mistake, but no one wanted to believe her, because who couldn’t love Sylvia! With pets, we often think with our hearts and not with our heads!
Ashleigh Merriel plays Phyllis – one of Kate’s highly strung friends – with enthusiasm and humour. When Sylvia tried to ‘hump’ Phyllis, Merriel played her with wickedly funny shock and horror, and reminded us how uncomfortable we actually feel when dogs’ natural urges rule their behaviour.
Nathan Brown plays Tom, a fellow dog owner who befriends Greg when they are exercising their dogs in the park. Tom is wise, and tries to warn Greg off anthropomorphising Sylvia too much. Brown handles the essentially ‘straight role’ with great style and ease. He is immediately likable and consistently interesting as a character.
Stephanie Russell plays Leslie, the counsellor who tries to help Greg and Kate come to terms with the developing problems in their marriage. Leslie is perhaps the most difficult (human) role in the play, and Gurney’s text requires Leslie to present as gender-fluid in order to respond to and optimise their relationship with clients. That is, a client might feel more comfortable with one gender over the other. Crucially, this can also change mid client-counsellor session! Russell successfully draws out Leslie’s exasperation with Greg and siding with Kate – the text helps a great deal with that – but could nuance Leslie’s approach and manner to draw out more obviously how Leslie unconscionably uses gender fluidity as a tool.
Although the set is minimalistic, it is colourful and effective. Strauts moves his cast easily around the set and it never ‘gets in the way’ of what is usually a pacy delivery. Lighting is also unfussed and the whole ‘picture’ is pleasing.
What is it about the connection between dog and human? Whatever it is, the audience delighted in it and Sylvia put a spring in the step and a broad smile on the face of every audience member. This is great-fun feel-good theatre!
