Reviews for Goat, or, Who Is Sylvia?

The average rating for Goat, or, Who Is Sylvia? based on 2 reviews is 4.5 stars.

Review # 1 was written on 2007-10-08 00:00:00 Roy Osborne Edward Albee is know for his ability to write plays in which each character's flaws slowly ooze out of them like sweat from a roasting pig, resulting in a combustion of relationships among the characters. in this repulsivly dark comedy about a happily married man who falls in love with a goat, Albee raises questions about the social boundaries of sex and love and what is deemed "moral" to the norm of the society. this is almost a farce to Peter Shaffer's Equus, except that Albee's message is more focused on the breakdown of the relationships of his wife, his son, and his best friend, and throws mud in the faces of those who question the morality of the situation. i highly recommend this read, especially to witness Albee's masterful control of language and deep psychological insight into love and relationships.

Review # 2 was written on 2013-02-26 00:00:00 Steve Neal This is not really about a guy who fucks a goat (not that it couldn't be, but that only scratches the surface.) In a deeper sense, the goat is a metaphor for any unutterable desire or act that once revealed is met with repulsion, castigation, condemnation and expulsion. Although Albee is undoubtedly America's most vicious playwright (and the play has a quality of baiting the audience who will come to any play with Albee's name on it, regardless of how offensive it appears to be) his choice of a goat is far from random. Even beyond the etymological origin of the word "tragedy" that Albee himself references, in the deepest and most literal sense, the goat is the scapegoat, that vessel into which we pour all of our sin in the hope of redemption. This is a mirror of Martin's journey, for it is only after the awful revelation that the door to redemption opens. We need to remember that Albee is not only a notorious iconoclast, but a very sophisticated artist whose work has many layers.