‘Sylvia’ delivery spunky amusing> Play’s theme enough to incite anger

Thirty minutes into the University of Maine School of Performing Arts production of “Sylvia,” I wanted to fling a copy of Simone de Beauvoir’s “The Second Sex” right at the head of playwright A.R. Gurney. And I wanted it to hurt. “Sylvia,” you may know, is Gurney’s midlife crisis story of a washed-up Wall Street businessman who picks up a dog (played by a woman rather than a dog) in the park and brings her home to his upscale Manhattan apartment.

Sylvia, the dog, is everything Greg wants. Unlike his wife Kate (read: the shrew), Sylvia gives Greg unconditional love, sits at his feet, lives for his pat on the head. “I have a need,” says Greg trying to explain his new obsession for this grungy mutt. “It’s a definite need. She needs me.” To which his wife rightly responds: “I may puke, Greg.”

Well, exactly. The parallels in this play are ones for which I have very limited tolerance. Women as dogs. Women as bitches. Men as boys. Dogs as metaphors. It all seems rather untoward. Not to mention mean.

As fate and American taste would have it, “Sylvia” was a smash hit when it opened in New York two years ago. The play is cagily about a New York state of mind, so there’s no surprise it rocked the town. Vincent Canby, in his gushing review in The New York Times, recounted a scene in which Sylvia sits like, well a dog, at her master’s feet after she has just called him God. “What man could resist?” wrote Canby. To which I might rebut: “The only kind of man I want to know.”

All that said, it’s only fair to also point out that the audience members who attended this show the same night I did loved it. They laughed and clapped and gave themselves over to its cheery glibness. During a scene in which Kate resentfully cleans up a puddle left by Sylvia, a woman in front of me turned to her girlfriend and emphatically said, “Have we been there or what?” At that point, determined to find something more worthwhile in this fantasy drama, I moved to the back of the theater and sat alone.

That’s a significant move, I think, because A.R. Gurney’s “Sylvia” is a piece filled with loneliness. Greg is a lonely man, whose menopausal moment is at hand. His 22-year marriage has waned, and Kate is deep into a career of her own. The kids are gone, and Greg is taking a hard look at his own hollowness. At least Sylvia needs him. Sylvia who is a slut, who is impertinent, who is unleashed id.

Finally, Greg does take steps to preserve his marriage, but it’s hardly a triumphant moment. The play really is more about the queer options of a New York marriage, the dangers of the WASP psyche, and the possibilities that come with love and dogs.

But that’s not to say there isn’t some fine, fine writing in this play. Gurney, whose most famous work is the two-person romance “Love Letters,” is the best playwright we have when it comes to depicting the indulgences of an upper-middle class malaise. The tradition he taps into for “Sylvia” — with an animal as the vehicle of salvation — is not that far from Aristophanes or even more modern pieces such as “Rhinoceros” and “Harvey.” Except I found Gurney’s conclusions overly offensive at times.

The best thing about this production is that it is directed with admirable energy by Tom Mikotowicz, who deserves a round of applause just for annually mounting contemporary plays on UM stages. “Sylvia,” it disturbingly turns out, has been one of the most frequently performed plays in the country this year. It’s true that sometimes Mikotowicz’s actors slip into an embarrassing level of inhibition, especially when they pull such stunts as acting wildly drunk after two sips of liquor. But the middle-age situation of the play is a long shot for these young actors. More often than is interesting, they end up coming off as if they were in an episode of “The Simpsons” — and, of course, that has both merits and demerits. At their most elegant, they sing a darling three-part version of “Ev’ry Time We Say Goodbye (I Die a Little).”

The anchor of the show is Matthew Vire, whose Greg is calmly assured, calmly passionate and calmly hilarious. His understated physical humor is grandly fun to watch. By the end of the play, he’s the hero, but only because he’s a darn nice guy — even if I don’t like his taste in women and dogs.

Kristen Williams plays Kate in such a way that I cringed every time she walked on to the stage. She’s scolding and vexatious and, unfortunately, that’s precisely how the role is written. So Williams nailed it.

Misty Dawn Jordan is a lusty Sylvia, who wags her tail, flashes her cleavage and goes at humping like a dog in heat, which, of course, she is. She has the best, most cynical lines in the script, and when she’s not shouting them incomprehensibly loud or being too, too cute, she shows a skill for comic delivery.

Supporting roles played by Eric Mulligan, Katharine Penniman and Scott A. Watson are mostly outrageous, and each of the actors goes at that with greater or lesser degrees of success.

With oversized pillows, sparse greenery and top-lit lamps, Wayne Merritt’s set and lighting designs effectively create a certain kind of New York ambience.

The upshot here is that I am glad I stayed for the entire two hours of this two-act play about an investment banker and the dog with whom he finds ultimate love — if only to be able to write that odd sentence. The UM performance is filled with spunk and amusement. It was the overall theme of the play left me feeling discouraged and even angry. But Gurney’s no dog; he knows what tree he’s barking up and does it with woofing glory.

The University of Maine School of Performing Arts and Maine Masque present “Sylvia” at 7:30 p.m. Oct. 31, and 2 p.m. Nov. 2, at Hauck Auditorium. A high-school matinee is at noon Oct. 30.