{"id":250538,"date":"2026-04-03T20:47:08","date_gmt":"2026-04-03T20:47:08","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/250538\/"},"modified":"2026-04-03T20:47:08","modified_gmt":"2026-04-03T20:47:08","slug":"some-audience-members-walked-out-this-goat-is-that-unsettling","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/250538\/","title":{"rendered":"Some audience members walked out. This \u2018Goat\u2019 is that unsettling"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"Erin<\/p>\n

Erin Mei-Ling Stuart, left, and William Giammona in Shotgun Players\u2019 \u201cThe Goat or, Who Is Sylvia?\u201d<\/p>\n

Ben Krantz\/Shotgun Players<\/p>\n

Not long after the audience settles in for Shotgun Players\u2019\u00a0 knife-sharp staging of \u201cThe Goat or, Who Is Sylvia? ,\u201d things start to go a little squirmy.\u00a0<\/p>\n

Starchitect Martin and his wife, Stevie, a middle-aged married couple who seem to have it all\u00a0\u2014 money, prestige, good sex\u00a0\u2014 begin to show fissures in the facade. The spouses correct each other\u2019s grammar, natter about a razor, idly wonder if Martin might have Alzheimer\u2019s.<\/p>\n

But just wait to hear what dark matter Edward Albee\u2019s 2002 comic tragedy has in store for them.\u00a0<\/p>\n

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As is often true of an Allbee play, cracks in the veneer open into chasms of striving, desire,\u00a0 betrayal and raw revelation. The pattern is most familiar from the playwright\u2019s 1962 booze-fueled brawl \u201cWho\u2019s Afraid of Virginia Woolf?\u201d \u201cGoat\u201d to my mind the greater play, fuses Allbee\u2019s psychological acuity to the surrealism of his \u201cSeascape<\/a>\u201d and the mortal angst of \u201cThree Tall Women.\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n

\"Erin<\/p>\n

Erin Mei-Ling Stuart, left, and William Giammona in Shotgun Players\u2019 \u201cThe Goat or, Who Is Sylvia?\u201d<\/p>\n

Ben Krantz\/Shotgun Players<\/p>\n

In Shotgun\u2019s beautifully judged, starkly funny and emotionally cauterizing production, which I saw on Thursday, April 2, a terrific cast of four is supported by Kevin Clarke\u2019s incisive direction and the cunning work of the show\u2019s designers. Together they bring this acidulous, tender tragedy to jolting life.\u00a0\u00a0<\/p>\n

\"4<\/p>\n

\u201cThe Goat or, \u00a0Who is Sylvia?\u201d: Comic tragedy by Edward Albee. Directed by Kevin Clarke. 95 minutes. Through April 26. $23-$80. Shotgun Players at Ashby Stage, 1901 Ashby Ave., Berkeley. 510-841-6500, ext. 303. www.shotgunplayers.org<\/a> \u00a0\u00a0<\/p>\n

The action takes place on a bare gray set (by Liliana Dubuque-Pi\u00f1eiro), the antithesis of the Broadway production\u2019s deluxe decor. The costumes (Sharon Peng) are muted as well, with whispering tones of ecru and cream. When Stevie (Erin Mei-Ling Stuart) comes onstage with a bunch of red flowers to \u201cbrighten up the place,\u201d she drops them on the floor because there\u2019s only an imaginary end table for them. There they stay, like an indelible bloodstain.\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0<\/p>\n

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At the outset, Martin (William Giammona) is as stolid as a piece of furniture, standing stock still at center stage, the black rectangle through which the other actors enter and exit like a deep void behind him. You can almost feel the heat of his secret leaking through his pores.\u00a0<\/p>\n

One effect of this austerity and repression is to focus attention on Albee\u2019s language, with its slippery banalities and barbs.\u00a0<\/p>\n

When the couple falls into a little Noel Cowardesque riff, the play\u2019s central confession arrives like a comic absurdity. Because it comes so early, it\u2019s only a minor spoiler to reveal that Martin is in love with a goat. And yes, it\u2019s sexual.\u00a0<\/p>\n

\"Joel<\/p>\n

Joel Ochoa, left, and Erin Mei-Ling Stuart in Shotgun Players\u2019 \u201cThe Goat or, Who Is Sylvia?\u201d<\/p>\n

Ben Krantz\/Shotgun Players<\/p>\n

When it dawns on Stevie that he means it, a carefully composed Mei-Ling Stuart becomes a vengeance-driven fury, a Clytemnestra in designer silks, pitching over the furniture and breaking every invisible piece of glassware in sight. Matt Stines\u2019 perfectly timed sound design lands every shattering crash.\u00a0\u00a0<\/p>\n

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\u201cThe Goat\u201d delivers plenty more shocks, some of which audibly startled Thursday\u2019s\u00a0 audience and prompted a few walkouts. But the production builds to a remarkable, resonant conclusion best experienced fresh.\u00a0\u00a0<\/p>\n

What cuts most deeply are less the big gut-punching reveals than the way the characters try, fail and try again to come clean to themselves. One of the biggest comes late, when their son Billy (Joel Ochoa) confronts his father.<\/p>\n

\"William<\/p>\n

William Giammona, left, and Kevin Singer in Shotgun Players\u2019 \u201cThe Goat or, Who Is Sylvia?\u201d<\/p>\n

Ben Krantz\/Shotgun Players<\/p>\n

Giammona is pleadingly, movingly lyrical when he takes a few steps closer to the audience and rhapsodizes about his lover, the innocent-faced goat he\u2019s named Sylvia. As Ross, Martin\u2019s friend and confidante, Kevin Singer has the insinuating righteousness of a slinky cat, his line readings all mews and snarls. Ochoa\u2019s snide speech about his privileged private school\u00a0 becomes a wrenching aria of desolation and need.\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0<\/p>\n

\u201cThe Goat\u201d is about human nature stripped bare, down to our animal essences that confound, frighten and thrill us. The marvel of the play, and of this keenly staged and performed production, is its emotional volatility, the quiver of truth behind the percolating dialogue of\u00a0 evasion or shaming accusation.<\/p>\n

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When Martin admits he\u2019s \u201cseeing\u201d Sylvia, he means it in both the carnal and helplessly captivated senses. That\u2019s what this sexually drenched \u201cGoat\u201d does, too. It sees into our deepest recesses.\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0<\/p>\n

Steven Winn is a freelance writer.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Erin Mei-Ling Stuart, left, and William Giammona in Shotgun Players\u2019 \u201cThe Goat or, Who Is Sylvia?\u201d Ben Krantz\/Shotgun…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":250539,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[34],"tags":[329,7,332,143,145,144,1058],"class_list":["post-250538","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-oakland","tag-arts-and-entertainment","tag-california","tag-east-bay","tag-oakland","tag-oakland-headlines","tag-oakland-news","tag-theater"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/250538","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=250538"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/250538\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/250539"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=250538"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=250538"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=250538"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}