Women Grow Cold, But Dogs Are a Man’s Best Friend

Sylvia at the Cort Theatre 

Annaleigh Ashford (left) as the lovable mutt of the title, with Matthew Broderick as her owner.

            Sylvia, a delightful little cream puff that wants only to please and mostly succeeds, opened on October 27^th and runs through January at the Cort Theatre.  It’s light fare with no delusions about its lightness.  Greg (Matthew Broderick) finds a dog, Sylvia (Annaleigh Ashford) in the park, and keeps her, and his wife, Kate (Julie White) is not happy.  When the play fails — and it doesn’t fail often — it’s when it’s trying to take itself too seriously, and when your play involves a French poodle played by Annaleigh Ashford calling a stray cat a “sack of shit,” it’s best to just let the good times roll and let the cards fall where they may.

It’s an A.R. Gurney play, which means it’s grounded, ultimately, in performance — his dialogue, which recalls slightly under-par Philip Barry, can seem stilted if it’s performed by the wrong actors.  Luckily, this production faces no such problem.  Matthew Broderick is as earnestly oblivious as ever (he was always a poor casting choice for the canny operator depicted in Ferris Bueller’s Day Off), perfect for Gurney’s writing, which can sometimes seem a relic, if a beautiful one, of a bygone era.  Done by almost any other actor, Greg’s freewheeling, uncertain search for philosophical constancy through the magic of dog ownership would seem ridiculous, but the Leo Bloom in him makes this just another faintly ridiculous impossible dream in which we’re all too willing to go all in with him. Julie White is serviceable as Kate, but most entertaining when she enters into what becomes an act-long catfight (pardon me) with Sylvia over Greg’s affections.  And Robert Sella, playing three comic roles hysterically (one funnier than the other two, but not by much), genuinely has to be seen to be believed.

But Annaleigh Ashford, whose brilliant turn in You Can’t Take it With You last season remains one of the best comedic stage performances I’ve ever seen, is the star here.  From beginning to end she brings her trademark twinkling, pointedly awkward physicality to this utterly strange role (played in the show’s single previous New York staging, Off-Broadway in 1995, by Sarah Jessica Parker, Mr. Broderick’s wife).  She can seem, frequently, as if she alternates between being weightless and a full-on bruiser, a being of uncertain size and capacity who transforms between lines, an effect only the truly great comic performers (Robin Williams comes to mind) can attain.  It takes a great Sylvia to make Sylvia interesting, and Ms. Ashford is one.

The play presents a number of interesting implications about the relationship between Greg and Sylvia.  The hints of a physical affair are the most interesting choice made by director Daniel Sullivan, and the ways in which Kate and Greg interact with the dog when their spouse is not around say a lot about what we project onto our pets, or just about projecting period.  Sadly, though the play clearly thinks of itself as being literary and metaphysical (Kate, a teacher, quotes Hamlet and Henry IV between scenes), these threads are dropped like hotcakes in favor of a squeamishly saccharine ending that actually undoes the most interesting conceit the play has to offer. 

Settle, then, for the fact that this show is funny, effervescently funny; that there is never a period of more than two minutes without a hardcore belly-laugh.  Though it has a fair share of wit, a good deal of Sylvia’s humor comes from sheer silliness.  When, in one scene, Greg leaves Sylvia alone to take Kate to the airport, we are treated to the ridiculous sight of Sylvia, draped over a couch, warbling Cole Porter’s “Ev’ry Time We Say Goodbye,” a chorus quickly joined by Greg and Kate.  Given that Ms. Ashford and Mr. Broderick are both eminently enjoyable singers, it's actually quite nice.  Admittedly, it doesn’t really make any sense, but neither does a dog wearing kneepads, gym shorts, and Kathy Najimy’s hairstyle from Hocus Pocus.  This show exists to make you laugh, and, much like a dog, if it piddles on the metaphorical carpet once in a while, it’ll barely register your displeasure before it dives right in to try again.