‘Sylvia’ Mixes Laughs With Touching Love Story

“Sylvia” Saturday, April 12, Interplayers Ensemble

If “Sylvia” isn’t a huge hit for Interplayers, I’m no judge of plays or of canines.

This 1995 A.R. Gurney play about a man and his dog is the funniest and cleverest piece of theater I’ve seen all year. It’s been a long time since I’ve seen an audience so tuned into a play. The laughter was explosive.

Forget about “Lassie” or “101 Dalmatians.” This is just about the most sophisticated dog story you’ve ever seen, even though the premise couldn’t be simpler. Greg, a middle-aged, married Manhattanite, finds Sylvia, a stray, in Central Park. He falls in love with her and brings her home, but his wife, Kate, does not want a dog. She makes Greg choose between her and the dog.

This choice is not as simple as you might think, and Gurney’s real achievement is that he makes us understand why. “Sylvia” is the best exploration of the bond between man and dog that I have seen or read.

Gurney took a big risk in casting a woman as the dog. Who would have ever thought that this would work? Isn’t it a little … weird?

Not when Erin Merritt plays the dog. This young San Francisco actress makes an absolutely fetching mutt: bright-eyed, alert, eager to please. But don’t get the idea that she was simply playing a cute, doglike human, the way those people in “Cats” are cute, catlike humans.

Her every movement and every gesture was canine, from sniffing the furniture to jumping on the couch to flinging herself at a visitor’s leg. Not only that, but her speech was canine, if you can believe that. Her agitated, “Hey! Hey! Hey!” was the English equivalent of a bark.

When she spoke lines (and she has as many lines as anybody in the cast) she even sounded canine. That is, she said things that a dog would actually say, such as: “You are God!” (looking adoringly at owner).

“I wish I could contribute something here, but I just can’t” (after her owner goes into long soliloquy about post-Cold War malaise).

“I have to check my messages” (heading toward a lamppost).

Richard R. Hamblin does a fine job in the difficult role of Greg. Greg is troubled in his work and his marriage, and Hamblin shows exactly what joy Sylvia brings into his life.

Emma O’Donnell is also effective as the wife Kate, a non-lover of dogs who routinely refers to Sylvia as “Saliva.” O’Donnell, who reminded me of Annette Bening, looked a bit young to be an empty-nester, but her anguish over what was happening in her marriage was communicated with subtlety and craft.

Michael Weaver played three parts with skill, most hilariously as the high-society dame, Phyllis. Sylvia took an, ahem, inappropriate interest in Phyllis’ leg, with absolutely hysterical results. Weaver’s character of Leslie was marred by a poor costume decision. Leslie was supposed to be androgynous, but his costume made him look like a man, period.

Otherwise, Joan Welch’s direction hit no false notes. One scene, in which the three main characters sing a slightly off-key version of Cole Porter’s “Every Time We Say Goodbye,” could have been an embarrassment with the wrong touch. Here, it was touching.

So “Sylvia” is a tremendous piece of comic entertainment, but is it art? I think so. Gurney delves deeply into the mysterious connection between a person and a dog. Gurney made me understand the nobility of that bond and how it actually can make the human half of the partnership more, well, human. He also helped me to understand the primitive nature of this connection. A person’s love for a dog can be, essentially, an expression of a love for nature. So, talking dog or not, I didn’t find “Sylvia” to be silly or trivial.

Sometimes a touching movie or play makes me want to go home and hug my kids. After “Sylvia,” I went home and hugged my dog.

, DataTimes