‘Sylvia’ makes herself at home

      The theatre department kicked off their season with four nights of sell out crowds and a Sunday matinee, as they presented A.R. Gurney’s “Sylvia” on Sept. 26 through Sept. 30 in Russell Auditorium.
     “Sylvia” is a comedy about a man, his dog and his jealous wife set in New York City.
    Greg, played by Scott Howard, a junior theatre major, is an unsatisfied business man who has a great love for dogs. Greg discovered Sylvia, played by Maria Perez, a senior theatre major, in the park and instantly fell in love with each other. The jealous wife is played by Elisha Hodgen.
    Robert Valentine, a senior piano performance major and a proud dog owner, thoroughly enjoyed the play while also supporting the theatre department and his friends.
    “I thought it was a realistic view of how people treat their dogs,” Valentine said. “I talk to my dog like she’s a person, so this play was something I can relate to.”
    Dr. Brock Fisher, GCSU’s department of theatre chair, directed “Sylvia” and started the process during the second week of school with auditions. The cast had exactly four weeks to rehearse. The play was  highly energized and packed a lot of laughs.  Fisher used some different techniques such as adding a dancing moving crew to add to the colorful nature of “Sylvia.”
     “Having the movers dance in between sets was a great addition to the play. It’s done in contemporary theatre,” Fisher said. “But I also wanted to keep the audience entertained. I wanted it to never stop.”
    Fisher also added slide shows featuring dogs from the Animal Rescue Foundation in Milledgeville as way of doing outreach program with the theatre productions. He is also an ARF dog owner.
    “I would have loved to collect money for ARF,” Fisher said. “But hopefully the slide shows would inspire the audience to give these animals a home, or at least volunteer. It’s a nice way of getting community awareness.”
    Dottie Pratt, a junior theatre and creative writing major, saw the play four times.
    “It was different watching it four times because there was always a new set of audience,” Pratt said. “I enjoyed the play because I
didn’t expect it to be the way it was. The language was colorful, and it was pretty sexual. But it was done in good taste.”
     Valentine was also pleasantly surprised by the play.
 “I didn’t even know that the dog was going to be played by a person,” Valentine said. “I couldn’t stop laughing.”
    Though Fisher and the cast added a few personal and creative touches, Fisher insists that the play is true to the original “Sylvia.”
    “The three secondary characters in the original production was played by one male actor,” Fisher said. “I got the idea to cast all males for those parts, but I decided that I would have three instead of one. They were excellent.”
    And excellent they were. Pratt was a huge fan.
    “I thought that those three characters, even though they were minor, added that comedic touch,” Pratt said. “The main characters were pretty straightforward. The minor characters were just outrageously funny.”
    The popular play has been performed in over 180 productions to date in the U.S. and other countries. It  premiered in New York starring Sarah Jessica Parker as Sylvia.

Posted by Colonnade Archives on Oct 5 2007. Filed under Features. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0. You can leave a response or trackback to this entry