Robert Sella, Annaleigh Ashford, Matthew Broderick
A Tony award-winner last season for You Can't Take It With You, Annaleigh Ashford is the prettiest, most cunning, cute, coquettish little flirt ever to be picked up in Central Park. She is no dog, but yes she is. . . actually a dog in A.R. Gurney's whimsical 1995 comedy Sylvia, a wonderful revival of which has opened at the Cort Theatre. As the abandoned mongrel affixed with the name Sylvia, Ashford uses her agility to twist, turn, leap and curl her body in more endearing and amusing ways than those she effected as the Sycamore family's klutzy ballerina in You Can't Take It With You.
Greg (Matthew Broderick) is the man who brings Sylvia back to his Manhattan apartment and where they develop instant crushes on each other. So starts a true and touching romance. It is easy to see why Sylvia has been a staple of regional and community theaters since its premiere. It is not only a delightful fantasy, but also a psychologically persuasive look at one man's mid-life crisis.
Sylvia's savior, the middle aged man that she thinks of as God, is played with an air of nebbish-like vulnerability by Broderick, a master of that facade. If this is a role that seems tailor-made for Broderick it is because Greg is also one of those susceptible-to-unqualified-affection characters with whom Broderick seems to be most in tune. We can certainly see in his face and unassuming demeanor how ripe he is for the attentions of an adoring, straggly-haired blonde who snuggles, sniffs and smooches with unstoppable vigor, Greg is easily seduced, and so are we.
Blinded by his immediate love for Sylvia, Greg brings her home to his New York apartment. Their romance is thwarted, or at least stunted, by his wife Kate, a woman whose apathy is immediately apparent. She is played by a terrific Julie White, whose talent and versatility have earned her a trunk load of awards and nominations.
Kate has an agenda that doesn't include Sylvia. Although she is attractive and intelligent, she is unwilling to compromise their carefully plotted now-that-the-children-are-gone middle years for a stray dog. . . that she calls Saliva.
Hardly a ménage-a-trois in the conventional sense, Gurney invests this unconventional love story with plenty of humorous dog-eared incidents and dialogue. Necessarily intrusive, but laugh-getting and certainly scene-stealing is the triple role-playing by Robert Sella. All four actors have been put through their paws and paces with a controlling leash by director Daniel Sullivan.To read the entire review please go to:
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