'Sylvia,' about a man and his dog, diversifies Brunswick theater

Ron Lee's 2007 direction of the mad-clad One Flew Over The Cuckoo's Nest was the final screw of a light bulb for Brunswick Little Theatre. Having drawn BLT's largest crowd yet for a straight play, it came as a welcome surprise.

Like this summer's upcoming musical manifestations, the quirk-laden Seussical: The Musical and the debauched Forbidden Broadway, the current production of A.R. Gurney's Sylvia is diversifying the Brunswick theater experience.

The title character of Sylvia is a dog, played by, as Gurney calls for, a female actress (Maureen Dewire).

To the play's purpose, Sylvia looks no more like a dog than you or I do. When the play opened on Broadway in 1995, Sarah Jessica Parker, the character's originator, wore trendy West Village attire and two poofy pigtails.

Sylvia is also a dog that talks, saying the kinds of things one might expect a dog to say ("I think you're God," "I want to sit near you," "I like you! I like you! I like you!") and sometimes bursting into a stream of expletives.

Greg (Eben French Mastin) is Sylvia's new owner, but he doesn't seem to listen to the wary words of a philosophical dog owner he meets in the park: "A man and his dog. It's a big thing. You can get lost in it."

The existence of Sylvia begins to bite on Greg's already fragile midlife marriage with Kate (Victoria Chatfield). Like some people who enter love triangles with their work or their car, Greg enters a love triangle with his dog.

While Sylvia opens Friday at Odell Williamson Auditorium, it will leash up for a walk downtown at The Brown Coat Pub & Theatre next weekend.