The Goat or Who is Sylvia by Edward Albee


First Reading of Edward Albee's The Goat or Who is Sylvia


I read this play today. I am not at all sure that I fully understand it. I suspect that it may take several readings and some careful thinking to do so. It is the story of a famous architect, at the top of his career, who starts behaving oddly - he can't remember things, seems troubled. He has a terrific marriage, though, he and his wife seem so much on the same wavelength that they easily share thoughts. But it turns out that what troubles Martin is that he has fallen in love with a goat - not just having sex but a full blown obsessive affair. He is not sorry, he does not think it is wrong - in fact he thinks that nobody can understand it really. When a friend he confides in writes a letter to his wife, she confronts him. This is the real meat of the play - she tries mightily to understand it but it is just too humiliating and weird. She decides to hurt him as he has hurt her, and ends up killing the goat and dragging it onstage.
At first it seems like a parody of a midlife crisis, but then it raises a host of troubling thoughts. Isn't this the way people used to react about men who fell in love with other men? How well can we really know other people? How easy is it to have everything about our lives turned upside down? How can he really believe he is in love - and how can anybody else really know? This play reminds me of A Delicate Balance where a couple just kind of falls off the existential cliff.
Some links:
Albee Biography
Geocities
Gradesaver
IBDB

Posted: Mon - March 8, 2004 at 09:02 PM          

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