Jim Lowe of The Times Argus feature article on LNT's upcoming "Sylvia"
September 29, 2016
Features | A&E/InVite
by arts editor JIm Lowe
reprinted with permission
A Love Triange – With a Dog?
Stefan Hard / Staff Photo
Courtney Wood is the playful, and to some, annoying dog Sylvia, center left, who has just dropped a ball in a drink held by Tom, played by Scott Renzoni, in a rehearsal scene from the Lost Nation Theater production of the comedy “Sylvia.” At top is Maura O’Brien playing Kate, and in the foreground is Paul Molner as Greg.
A.R. Gurney’s hit comedy “Sylvia,” about a dog who comes between a husband and wife, turns out to be a lot more than a silly sitcom.
“It’s got so many questions — without any absolute answers,” explains Will Davis, who is directing the Lost Nation Theater production.” This could be a metaphor for five different things, and you never get an answer.
“I love a script that says, ‘All right audience, what do you have happening here?’”
Lost Nation Theater, the capital city’s resident professional company, will present Gurney’s “Sylvia” Oct. 6-23 at Montpelier’s City Hall Arts Center.
“Sylvia” premiered off-Broadway in 1995, and has been a favorite of community and professional theaters alike since. Set in a New York City apartment, the play centers on Greg and Kate, a middle-aged upper middle-class couple facing an empty nest. One day, Greg brings home a dog he has befriended in the park — Sylvia, played by a human. And Kate wants her gone.
But Greg insists. He and Sylvia go on long walks, discussing life and astronomy. Soon he is spending more time with Sylvia than Kate or at his job. Thus the war between Kate and Sylvia begins.
In the Lost Nation production, Sylvia will be played by Courtney Wood, currently soloing in “The Syringa Tree.”
“Sylvia is barrels of fun to play,” Wood said recently. “She’s energetic and full of love. It’s a blast because you get to explore human and dog physicality. She wears people’s clothes, she talks directly to people — but, at the same time, she’s a dog.
“She does doggy things — she gets in trouble, she misbehaves, she bugs Kate to no end,” Wood said. “She just got back from frolicking around with Bowser, and she gives the business to Greg as an adolescent teen discovering her sexuality for the first time.”
One of the challenges of producing “Sylvia” is its popularity.
“You can’t do somebody else’s production, or you’re going to be fighting uphill the whole time,” Davis said in a recent interview. He is technical director of Johnson State College’s Dibden Center for the Arts.
“If you play it honestly, you don’t play it like a comedy, you play it for the truth in every moment with the things that resonate for everybody — love, fear, death — people will get it,” he said. “People will find their spot. They will find themselves in there.”
The real challenge is making all the characters likable.
“You have to care,” Davis said. “Reading through it we say, ‘Oh man, how can we make Kate sympathetic?’ But when you break it down non-emotionally, Greg is that way. He’s gotten every break.”
Kate has spent her whole life raising kids, making the household work.
“It’s finally her time,” Davis said. “Greg’s very selfish — in a likable way.”
In fact, all the characters share both likable and dislikable traits.
“It’s that openness in the script that’s fantastic,” Davis said. “That’s why it gets done so much — you can see it, and see another version, and it can be very different.”
But, Davis said, its theme is universal.
“It’s about making choices in your life. Can I have it all, or can I not?” he said. “Greg and Kate want it all.”
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Lost Nation Theater
Lost Nation Theater presents “Sylvia,” the A.R. Gurney comedy, Oct. 6-23 at City Hall Arts Center, 39 Main St. in Montpelier. Performances are at 7:30 p.m. Thursday-Saturday, 2 p.m. Sunday. Tickets are $25-$30, $20-$25 for seniors and students ($15 for Oct. 6 preview); call 802-229-0492, or go online