Sylvia

Feb. 20, 1997

By CHARLES ISHERWOOD

"Sylvia" is a perky little comedy from A.R. Gurney that's sometimes as charming and sometimes as irritating as its title character, a stray pooch who brings comfort to a Manhattanite weathering the choppy waters of middle age. A crowd-pleaser par excellence --- unless, perhaps, you're exclusively partial to felines --- the show is likely to repeat its Off Broadway success at the Coronet Theater.
"Murphy Brown" veteran Charles Kimbrough reprises the role he created at the Manhattan Theater Club, playing Greg, a WASP who awakens to dissatisfaction one day, finding his life's empty with the kids off to college and his job reduced to shuttling money from one foreign currency to another. Playing hooky one day, he happens upon Sylvia (Stephanie Zimbalist), a friendly mutt who rather quickly comes to fill the void in his spirit.

Conflict arrives soon enough, as Greg's wife Kate (Mary Beth Peil) takes a hasty dislike to Sylvia, or rather to what Sylvia's turning Greg into. Though Sylvia barks and fetches on command, it's Greg who ends up jumping through emotional hoops, as Sylvia takes over both his time and affective life, jeopardizing his job and marriage.

The twist here is that this mutt talks, and much of the play's humor mines this vein, winning chuckles with lines that cannily approximate the intimacies that might take place between pet and parent if pets had powers of speech. And Gurney doesn't cheat by making the canine a philosophical giant (not until the end, anyway, when she comes out with a moving little monologue about unhappy marriages, and ends, too coyly, with " ... but what do I know. I'm only a dog"). Zimbalist, who's playing a gimmick more than a character, is energetic and winning with material that's largely low: see Sylvia sniff at Kate's rear; see Sylvia in heat; see Sylvia hurl a hail of vulgar curses at a cat, etc. This is sometimes clever, as when Sylvia excuses herself to "check her messages," and runs off to sniff inquisitively at tree trunks. But these are essentially just variations on the same joke, and they wear thin by play's end.

Kimbrough's hearty priggishness is played to perfection --- he wins a big laugh just from an elegantly enunciated curse. And Peil is very good indeed as the neglected wife, managing to retain an air of mild, dignified despair even though the play's essential superficiality pegs her quickly as a borderline alcoholic. But Derek Smith, playing a trio of roles, more or less walks off with the play, which isn't much of a chore with this admittedly lightweight fare. This is largely because two of the characters he plays --- Kate's high-hat society friend Phyllis and the self-assured shrink Leslie --- are female, and Smith plays both parts in high drag-queen mode, mugging like there's no tomorrow, in which activity he is encouraged by both the audience, forgivably, and apparently the director, John Tillinger, rather less forgivably.

Smith is undeniably a hoot, but the performance throws the play's balance off kilter. It cheapens the effect of some of its more quietly felicitous moments, as when Kate, Greg and Sylvia sweetly sing Cole Porter's "Every Time We Say Goodbye," a song that supplies more emotional heft than the play manages to muster elsewhere.


Coronet Theater; 272 seats;$42.50 top

Ted Weiant and Joan Stein present a play in tw o acts by A.R. Gurney. Directed by John Tillinger. 
Cast: Stephanie Zimbalist (Sylvia), Charles Kimbrough (Greg), Mary Beth Peil (Kate), Derek Smith (Tom/Phyllis/Leslie). 
Set, Lawrence Miller; costumes, Jane Greenwood; lighting, Michael Gilliam; sound, Jon Gottlieb; original sound design, Aural Fixation; casting, Marcia Shulman. Opened Feb. 18; reviewed Feb. 17; runs through April 6. Running time: 2 hours, 15 min.

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