The Goat or Who is Sylvia?

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Edward Albee‘s The Goat or, Who is Sylvia? is an absurdest play with subtle references to ancient Greek tragedy. It poked fun at modern liberal ideals, and taboos. It is not an easy play to digest. In the first scene Martin (Allan Whitehead) has turned 50. He seems to have it all a very successful career as an architect and a loving wife, Stevie (Merritt Anne Cooke-Greene). They joke with each other clearly loving each others company. Martin’s friend, Ross (Mark Anthony Kelly) is a reporter and he sets up his video camera to record an interview with his longtime friend. Though Martin is at the pinnacle of his career it became clear that he was not happy about turning 50.

I had sketched a reading of Edward Albee’s play back in 2010, so I knew what was to come in the second scene. Thought Martin had been faithful for his whole marriage, he had recently met Sylvia and fell  deeply in love. Perhaps it was the country air but he was different around her. He confessed this affair to Ross who immediately wrote a letter to Martin’s wife to warn her. What followed was a long confession my Martin to his wife while she broke just about every delicate item in the living room. I have to confess that there was so much yelling that I began to tone it out. The entire scene seemed hell bent on a single note of frantic yelling and emotional destruction. Martin’s Son, Billy (Adam Minossora) was home through the confession and he didn’t take the news well. Though Martin was out doing unimaginable things in the name of love he was not accepting of his son’s homosexuality. This was strange double standard for this father son relationship.

I will say it again, this is a hard show to watch. It is unnerving. It was a daring choice for Director Marco DeGeorge to bring it to Theater on the Edge (5542 Hansel Avenue Orlando FL). The first evening’s performance was sold out. Perhaps Orlando is ready for some really unsettling and cutting edge theater.

CREATIVE TEAM:
(Producer / Set Designer)
Elaitheia Quinn (Asst. Director / Creative Asst.)
Riley Walden (Directing Asst.)
Chris Ivers (Builder)
Megan Raitano (Associate Producer / Stage Manager)
Derek Alan Rowe (Graphic Designer)
DeeDee Strauss (Box Office).

The Goat, or, Who is Sylvia? is running April 2, 2019 to May 5, 2019. Tickets are $23 to $35.

Proof by David Auburn at Theater on the Edge.

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On the eve of her twenty-fifth birthday, Catherine, (Megan Raitano) a troubled young woman, has spent years caring for her brilliant but unstable father, Robert, (Allan Whitehead) a famous mathematician. She enters the stage crying and beside herself with grief. She consoles herself with some bubbly and then her father enters the stage to wish her a happy birthday and to talk about the good times they had. For some ominous reason he always spoke it int past tense until it becomes clear that he isn’t really there.

Following he father’s death, she must deal with her own volatile emotions; the arrival of her estranged sister, Claire (Elaitheia Quinn); and the attentions of Hal (Barry Wright), a former student of her father’s who hopes to find valuable work in the 103 notebooks that her father left behind.

Over the long weekend that follows, a burgeoning romance and the discovery of a mysterious notebook draw Catherine into the most difficult problem of all, namely, how much of her father’s madness, or genius, will she inherit? In one scene her father sits outside at the table in the freezing cold excitedly writing away in one of his notebooks. As he put it all cylinders were firing and the math problems were finding creative and inspired solutions. Catherine was excited for him and when she reads the paper, we watched her expression slowly change as she realized that the inspirations were nonsense having little to do with actual math.

Proof is a 2000 play by the American playwright David Auburn. Proof was developed at George Street Playhouse in New Brunswick, New Jersey, during the 1999 Next Stage Series of new plays. Theater on the Edge always brings the latest cutting edge plays to Orlando allowing the small audience a front row set into contemporaneity dreams and aspirations often with a touch of madness.

This incredible play rips out your heart and stomps on it for good measure. It runs through March 31st. Get your tickets at theaterontheedge.org at Theater on the Edge 5542 Hansel Avenue Orlando FL 32809.

American Buffalo at Theater on Edge.

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I went to a dress rehearsal of American Buffalo at Theater on Edge, (5542 Hansel Avenue Orlando, FL 32809). The theater is very intimate with just two rows of seats. Monica Mulder, an actress who played Oberon in a recent production of Shakespeare’s, A Mid Summer’s Night Dream invited me to the rehearsal. She was seated in the audience having a quick fast food diner. I assumed she would be in the production. I was wrong however, she is also a photographer who took shots to promote the show. I had followed a young man into the theater. He spoke to Monica multiple times in a barely audible whisper. I finally had to ask Monica if he was “in character” and she laughed, saying he was. He had a tough role as Bobby in the production.

American Buffalo is a 1975 play by American playwright David Mamet. The stage set was amazing. It replicated the chaos of a junk shop. A tiny horse carousel trinket reminded are of the Glass Menagerie that I had sketched days before.   Donny, Allan Whitehead, who owns the junk shop where the entire play takes place, had sold a buffalo nickel to a customer for ninety dollars but now suspects it is worth considerably more. He and his young gofer, Bobby, Zack Roundy, planned to steal the coin back. Teach, Marco DiGeorge, a poker buddy of Don’s, arrived and learned of the scheme. He
persuaded Don that Bobby is too inexperienced and untrustworthy for the
burglary, and proposed himself as Bob’s replacement. Teach suggested they
steal the whole coin collection and more. Don insisted that their poker
buddy Fletcher join the heist to watch their backs. Teach insisted that Fletcher was not needed. 

From the moment Teach arrived in the shop in his brown leather suit and brown pants, along with his 70s style handlebar mustache, he was a a violently paranoid braggart, a raw nerve of twitching swirling energy. He was a stark laughable contrast to Donny and Bobby’s lazy meandering conversation about what to get for breakfast. These high-minded grifters fancied themselves
businessmen pursuing legitimate free enterprise. But the reality is
that they were merely pawns caught up in their own game of last-chance,
dead-end, empty pipe dreams. Their dream was based on false information which lead them to turn on each other. 

I was completely riveted. In one scene, Teach almost choked on his breakfast bacon. The director Pam Harbaugh, later said that this wasn’t method acting, she was concerned for his well being. She was also thrilled that the audience of media were laughing so much during the production. After so many rehearsals, it is rewarding to hear the reactions. Violence later the play was shockingly real. I was caught off guard. I loved the intimate staging that left a fine line separating the audience from the action. 

American Buffalo runs from November 3rd to November 20th. Seating is very limited, so be sure to order a ticket online.