The Goat, or who is Sylvia? - play reviews, photos, articles,

The play written by Edward Albee, premiered on Broadway at the John Golden Theatre on 10 March 2002 where it ran for 309 performances. A production opened in London in 2004. Albee's sub-title for the play is "(Notes toward a definition of tragedy)". The word tragedy comes from the Greek for "goat song". (Wikipedia)
The play ran from 3 February to 13 March 2004 at Almeida Theatre then transferred to the Apollo Theatre, opened 15 April, closed 7 August 2004. Eddie played Billy.

STAGE REVIEW: Jonathan Pryce in Albee’s ‘The Goat’ (x)

Awards: He won the award for Outstanding Newcomer at the 50th Evening Standard Theatre Awards (2004) for his performance, and the award for Best Newcomer at the Critics' Circle Theatre Awards in 2005.

..His part in Edward Albee’s The Goat, or Who’s Sylvia? in 2004, for example, which featured some same-sex incest. It won him the Outstanding Newcomer award at the 50th Evening Standard Theatre Awards, and – strangely given the subject matter, perhaps – the approval of his parents for his career choice. ‘They were always a bit funny about acting as a career up until that point. They were worried about the longevity and safety of it and kept trying to make me think about producing or directing, or whatever, until I was given that award.’ The clincher, though, was that Kim Cattrall presented it. ‘My parents really enjoyed Sex and the City. So they were, like, “If Kim Cattrall says you’re OK, you’re OK.” It was a moment of validation, so thanks Kim. ( x )

WhatsOnStage.com review of the play 

By Mark Shenton • 4 Feb 2004 • West End (full review)

....In The Goat, Or Who is Sylvia?, the couple in question may play witty, pithy word games with each other like verbal ping-pong, but there's a very real crisis between them. Their apparently secure, comfortable marriage of 22 years is about to be detonated by the revelation that Martin, a prize-winning architect who has just celebrated his 50th birthday, is having an affair.

....It's a play that treads a fine line between its overpowering emotions and the breaking of strong taboos that is wildly and fiercely provocative, yet is also frequently funny and which should ultimately be as moving as it is shocking. It requires a delicate balance (to quote the title of another Albee masterpiece) to be struck between such extremes, and I'm not sure that Anthony Page's production fully reconciles them.

....part of the problem here is that Jonathan Pryce and his real-life wife Kate Fahy (IMDB) don't deliver the same degree of tension or, more surprisingly, intimacy (like the Broadway production). Fahy simply registers (understandable) outrage; Pryce, merely regret at having his secret revealed.

There's more shading in Eddie Redmayne's appealingly confused teenage son, and Matthew Marsh's defensive friend.... 

The Goat or who is Sylvia (Almeida Theatre 2004)

by Michael Billington theguardian.com, Wednesday 4 February 2004 (full review)

...Matthew Marsh as the bluntly disbelieving best friend and Eddie Redmayne as Martin's gay, emotionally fraught son are more in tune with Albee's rhythms. And by the end one is emotionally drained. It is partly because Albee follows an ancient rule of tragedy defined by Boethius as "a story of prosperity that endeth in wretchedness". But it is also because Albee has shocked us out of our familiar complacency. He has shown that passion is something that can neither be controlled, ordained or directed to socially acceptable ends. But he has also demonstrated that the victim of a condemned passion is like a traveller in a foreign country who cannot speak the language.

thisistheatre.com review
photos source: eddieredmayne.ru gallery

More photos from the play THE GOAT OR WHO IS SYLVIA

Eddie's brothers finds it hilarious, that he is frequently cast as a screwed-up teenager not only a psychotic killer in Like Minds, but an incestuous son in The Goat, the play he did three years ago at Almeida/Apollo theatres, and also in the film Savage Grace, in which him and Julienne Moore have an incestuous affair. ‘In Savage Grace I’m the gay son. My father runs off with my girlfriend and divorces my mother, and she screws me to straighten me out’, he says. ‘My brothers want to come and see those films in order to watch my parent’s reaction and sit there laughing. When I did The Goat in London, again playing an incestuous gay 17-year-old – that’s all I get cast as! – there was a moment when I had to snog my stage father. My brothers got endless enjoyment out of watching my dad squirm. They are so not in that world. They’re like, “Ed, Twelfth Night. Great mate. Shakespeare: so boring.”’

(source: Evening Standard Nov 2007)

Photo: Rehersal for Almeida Theatre production

'The Goat, or Who Is Sylvia?' (k280-2)

Rising Star Eddie Redmayne / Theatergoer May 2004 

Interveiw by Joe Mahon — Photo by Grant Scott

‘Raw, vulnerable, electrically alive...’

‘outstanding…”’beautifully captures the panic of the gay son…’ 

The critics loved him in Edward Albee’s provocative new play The Goat.

scan source: k280-2

click for full size

‘Doing The Goat has been a dream. There aren’t many parts like Billy for young actors – it’s a pretty meaty role and the cast are fantastic.
They’ve taught me a huge amount. Because I didn’t go to drama school, it’s just like one continual apprenticeship. Jonathan Pryce, who plays my father would give me notes or change things in the scenes without telling me, to keep my reactions real.
‘I was in Oliver! when I was 13, and Jonathan played Fagin. I turned up on the first day of rehearsal for The Goat, and I said: “Jon, hi. We’ve actually worked together before – I was in Oliver!” And there were hundreds of kids in the show. He said, “Who were you? Oliver? Dodger?” And I said, “Jon, don’t you remember? I was the bookboy.” I had one line: “Books you ordered from the bookseller, sir!” So it’s been a running joke that we’ve worked together before, but he has no recollection of me doing it, whereas I thought he was God.
‘Transferring to the Apollo feels like a really big step. It excites me so much, because when I think of the theatre, I think of a West-end theatre with velvet-upholstered seats, gilded balconies and dim lighting...the whole thing. That’s what I relate to. The idea of curtain-up just thrills me.

The Goat Press Night Afterparty April 15, 2004

photos source: eddieredmayne.ru gallery (click!)

Eddie's guest was Emily Bromfield (x)