Whatever floats your… goat?
Albee’s Tony Award winner explores one of the last great taboos
Janice Sawka

In some Middle Eastern countries, crossing your legs when seated next to someone is considered a major insult because you are exposing the bottom of your foot to that person. The verbal equivalent would be, “I think you’re as low as the dirt under my feet.”

It can also be viewed as disrespecting somebody’s family history or status. Something like, “Yer mother slept with goats.”

To which the characters in season-opening play at the Manitoba Theatre Centre Warehouse might reply, “Oh yeah? Not my mother…”

The Goat or, Who is Sylvia? is the story of Martin, a 50-year-old husband who has an extramarital love affair... with a goat.

Yes, you read that right. A real, four-legged, ‘baa-baa’ goat.

The script is the product of legendary playwright Edward Albee, author of Who’s Afraid of Virginia Woolf?, and the subject of the 2004 MTC Master Playwright Festival.

In 2002, The Goat or, Who is Sylvia?, earned him his third Tony Award for best play. He has been nominated for that honour nine times in his career -so far. And at 77 years old, the guy clearly has not yet learned the meaning of the word ‘retire.’

“He’s one of the giants of modern drama. He’s peerless,” says actor John Bourgeois, who plays the role of Martin in The Goat. “It’s a delight and a privilege to act one of his scripts.”

Bourgeois, who is also the director of the Acting for Film and Television program at Toronto’s Humber College, calls Albee “a very careful writer with a great sense of architecture and structure.

“This play isn’t as cryptic or absurdist as some of his works,” Bourgeois continues. “It’s much more the well-made drama, but it certainly bears his trademark caustic wit. It’s also very idiomatic. One of the challenges for me, as an actor, was to adhere to the seamlessness of the naturalism conveyed by the dialogue, right down to sounds like ‘Um’ and ‘Uhh…’.

“People will notice the speech here is less traditionally theatrical and more akin to what they’d hear on television.

“I’m also impressed by how true the characters are. There’s a 17-year-old son in the play, and he talks how a 17 year old would, not how a 77-year-old playwright thinks somebody that age speaks.”

The driving point of The Goat, according to Bourgeois, is how Albee challenges the nature of love.

“Yes, bestiality is mentioned,” he says. “I believe this play is Albee’s way of asking, ‘What taboos are left in society?’ and then going for it. People who attend theatre tend to be liberal, more educated and more open-minded, and Albee asks this audience, straight out, ‘Just how far will we go? Where will we draw the line? Who has the right to draw the line, and what do we do to those individuals who cross the line?’

“It’s like the original campfire, the members of the tribe meeting to discuss the rules of the village. I just love doing these kinds of plays. There’s nothing more exciting and exhilarating than gathering a bunch of people in a darkened room and telling them the truth.”