Theater Review: "The Goat", or "Who is Sylvia?"

A play about bestiality? On Broadway? I'm not joking. And neither is the theater community. The Goat, or Who is Sylvia? winner of the 2002 Tony for Best Play, is certainly thought-provoking at the least.

At best, it is a moving story about a family struggling with what playwright Edward Albee described as what "cannot be ignored."

Martin, a successful architect at the height of his career, played by Bill Pullman (Independence Day), is distracted. When prodded by his concerned best friend Ross (Stephen Rowe), Martin eventually chokes out that he is having an affair. And not only is he having an affair, he is in love. With a goat. Named Sylvia.

Martin's family - wife Stevie (Mercedes Ruehl) and son Billy (Jeffrey Carlson) - reels over this revelation, and delves into the depths of the unimaginable.

Stevie, understandably outraged, notes to Martin how, in life and marriage, one can prepare herself for disasters, such as infidelity and death. Bestiality, she said, is not one of them.

Shocking and moving, The Goat will leave you puzzling over it for days. I found Pullman's Martin a sympathetic character, despite his recent sexual abhorrence.

Who is Sylvia? "Who is Love?" offered Pullman, in a panel discussion after a powerful performance at the John Golden Theater. Heartbreaking as it is, Martin sees his infidelity as the purest love he's ever known, making the presentation harder to swallow than a back-woodsy farmer's would be.

Ruehl as Stevie, intelligent and honest, also delivers an accurate depiction of a woman whose life has taken a turn she could never have fathomed.

Rowe and Carlson complete the four-person cast, each offering compelling reactions to Martin's perversion.

And, as if the premise isn't shocking enough, the denouement will take your jaw to the floor.

A play about tolerance, family, the unimaginable, "The Goat" is a mind-bending and funny alternative to the musical fare littering Broadway.