| The Goat: A thrilling Stratford production has me dream casting a revival | |
| Posted by: DanielVincent 03:25 pm EDT 09/07/24 | |
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| It’s time for a first-class revival of The Goat, or Who Is Sylvia? I write while traveling back from a blissful few days at the Stratford Theatre Festival. Hands-down the best of several fantastic productions I took in was their mounting of The Goat. It was the first I’ve seen since catching Sally Field and Bill Irwin’s perhaps all-time best replacement turns on Broadway—and I found the writing even more brilliant than I remembered it. (I’d read the play a couple of times in the last 20 years, but, dear lord, if ever there were a contemporary drama that proves plays are meant to be performed and not simply read, this is it.) Oddly enough, as I left the performance at Stratford, I found myself thinking of Next to Normal…of The NY Times’s description of it as “a feel everything musical.” It may sound off, but I believe a good production of The Goat—like the current production in Stratford, like the Broadway replacement cast, to a lesser extent the original Broadway cast—showcases it as a feel everything play. It’s tragic. It’s funny. It’s relatable. It’s wildly unrelatable. It’s unbelievable. It’s honest. It rearranges your guts and your brain and leaves you asking big questions like all the best theatre should. I’m curious to know who folks would cast in a revival, especially since difficult subject matter often needs celebrity to sell in commercial theatre, and the roles of Stevie and Martin are highly demanding and require great talent. The play is set around Martin’s 50th birthday, and the two have a 17 year old son, so there are a few specifications of how old the actors playing the roles should read. As insinuated elsewhere in this post, I believe the play works best with actors like Sally Field and Bill Irwin who have a sweetness and, more importantly, accessibility that make the action of the play all the more surprising. Mercedes Ruehl and Bill Pullman respectively had an immediate intensity and quirkiness that suggested the trouble to come from the moment the curtain rose, which still worked but didn’t ultimately feel as dramatic or disturbing. (For those interested, at Stratford, Lucy Peacock’s Stevie feels similar to Ruehl’s and Rick Roberts’s Martin feels similar to Irwin’s, which was also an interesting combination.) POTENTIAL STEVIES: —More like Field— Olivia Colman Carrie Coon Jenna Fischer Calista Flockhart Audra McDonald Amy Ryan Marisa Tomei Michelle Williams —More like Ruehl— Eve Best Viola Davis Noma Dumezweni Edie Falco Laura Linney POTENTIAL MARTINS: —More like Irwin— Steve Carrell Will Ferrell Robert Sean Leonard Brian F. O’Byrne John C. Reilly Mark Ruffalo Jeremy Shamos Michael Stuhlberg David Zayas —More like Pullman— Josh Brolin Billy Crudup Bradley Cooper Tony Goldwyn John Benjamin Hickey Sam Rockwell Paul Rudd Corey Stoll What do others think? *I know Sarah Paulson recently referred to Stevie as a dream role of hers, to which I say, “Please, lord, no.” **Did anyone seen the semi-recent London production with Damien Lewis and Sophie Okonedo? I’d place him in the Pullman quirky category and her in the Field everywoman category, so I’m curious to know how the production worked. |
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