It’s a profound production of Edward Albee’s “The Goat, or Who is Sylvia?” that the Rogue Theatre has prepared. For playgoers who stuck with Rogue Theatre through the lean times, this is your reward.

Cynthia Meier and J. Andrew McGrath, with David Morden directing, reach a new level of intensity playing an upscale married couple who value perfection. Their intelligent, well-mannered teen son Billie (Matt Bowdren) proves it.

Sure, the whole perfect family image is a set-up. But not the set-up you might think. Albee has more on his mind than shredding the superficial values of people who always want to say the right thing.

The playwright begins by observing that all morality is arbitrary. The couple’s son is gay. But these people are civilized, sophisticated folk who make no distinctions. They are proud of being OK with homosexuality.

But how about bestiality?

McGrath plays the rumpled Martin, a respected architect arrogant in his determination to enjoy a comfortable life without lording it over anyone. Willing to accept other people’s flaws, Martin confesses to his best friend Ross (Rick Shipman) that he has been having an affair – with a goat he calls Sylvia.

Martin quickly discovers that, while homosexuality may be more acceptable these days, bestiality is not. His life falls apart and Albee asks why. What’s the difference? And who gets to decide that bestiality is worse?

In a technical sense, bestiality is a victimless crime. It wasn’t that long ago homosexual behavior was “the sin that dare not speak its name.” These days people not only speak the name, many openly embrace it. So Martin figures they should cut him a little slack, too.

After all, his love for Sylvia is sincere. He isn’t having random intercourse with just any goat. Sylvia is different, Martin insists. It was love at first sight when he walked by her pen.

Their eyes met. Martin felt a soul-connection with her. He kneeled down, held her face in his hands.

“She wanted to,” wails Martin, echoing the defense of many a loving pedophile.

If this scenario seems absurd, don’t bother seeing “The Goat.” But this is not a play about defending bestiality, anymore than it is a play about defending homosexuality.

Albee’s genius is in examining the logic of morality. Or maybe logic that is the enemy of morality. Just as science is the enemy of religion. Or is it?

The 21st century may be the place where these questions are decided. In the early 1960s, when Albee shocked society with “Who’s Afraid of Virginia Woolf?” it was pretty well agreed that men would control the world and women would control the men. His play peeled back the unwieldiness of this arrangement.

Now Albee has moved on to a more extreme question, opening this play on Broadway in 2002.

Granted, it is becoming increasingly difficult to shock people, even as conservatives keep trying to tighten the screws on how much those loose-moraled liberals are allowed to do.

The true beauty of the Rogue production is that the actors are so good, the audience can go straight to thinking about the issues. McGrath’s befuddlement is quite convincing.

Has his character been blindsided by true love? Or is he buckling under the mental stress of trying to maintain such a perfect image in society for so many years?

Meier’s character of Stevie, the patiently approving wife, is more complex as she responds with a moral outrage that leaps over logic. Then as Stevie’s husband begins to convince her thathe really does love the goat, matters just get worse.

Bowdren and Shipman do yeoman’s work in maintaining the play’s intensity. “The Goat” is performed without intermission and there’s not a false note to be heard.

Grade: A+

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IF YOU GO
What: The Rogue Theatre presents “The Goat, or Who is Sylvia?” by Edward Albee

When: 7:30 p.m. Thursday, Friday, Saturday; 2 p.m. Sunday; 7:30 p.m. Wednesday, also 7:30 p.m. Jan. 17 and Jan. 19; 2 p.m. Jan. 20. No performance Jan. 18.

Where: Cabaret Theatre, Temple of Music and Art, 330 S. Scott. Ave.

Price: Pay-What-You-Will Thursday and Jan. 17; $18 all other performances.

Info: 551-2053, www.theroguetheatre.org

This entry was posted on Thursday, January 10th, 2008 at 12:01 am and is filed under Calendar. Tags for this post: Calendar-Stage, Calendar-Stage-Review, Chuck Graham, Review, Stage. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. Both comments and pings are currently closed.