
DATE: Saturday, September 13, 1997          TAG: 9709130109

SECTION: DAILY BREAK             PAGE: E6   EDITION: FINAL 

TYPE: Theater Review 

SOURCE: BY MAL VINCENT, THEATER CRITIC 

                                            LENGTH:   83 lines

DOGGONE GOOD PLAY RECEIVES TWO PAWS UP

FOR THOSE who are tired of hearing about those singing and dancing ``Cats,'' here, at long last, is something for the dog folks.

``Sylvia,'' complete with fleas and unconditional love, is happily ensconced on the stage of the Generic Theater.

It's the A.R. Gurney play about a mutt - part poodle, part Lab - who moves in, makes mischief and near tragedy for a 22-year-marriage.

Coming on the heels of the theater's adventurous and quirky New Plays for Dog Days, this is a doggie of a different breed - a mainstream comedy that needs no extended analysis. It's outright fun, even with a touch of marital trauma.

Gurney is notable in that he's one of the few modern playwrights who bothers to explore the forgotten majority, the uppercrust WASP folks, featured in his ``The Dining Room,'' ``The Cocktail Hour'' and ``Love Letters.'' With other dramatists seemingly obsessed with the lowlife, he, almost alone, acknowledges that people do exist with bank accounts and upwardly mobile ambitions.

Greg and Kate, the couple in ``Sylvia,'' have jobs, a mortgage, and children off at college. Things are quietly pleasant until he finds a dog named Sylvia in Central Park and brings it home to their New York apartment. It promptly wets the carpet and climbs on the couch but it awakens a much-needed male compassion (or it is passion?) in Greg when it cuddles and tells him it think he's God.

Greg falls in love with the doggie but Kate wants it out - pronto. Sylvia knows she has him hooked. When Kate is out of the apartment, Greg willingly lets her take over the couch.

Sight unseen, Kathy Umberger would seem a heavy-handed choice for the role of flighty Sylvia. She's been more prominent in highly dramatic local outings, including the likes of Lady Macbeth. But Umberger makes Sylvia her own - a tail-wagging little conniver who fetches, sits, and rolls over - but only when there's a pay off. She's not the playful puppy that Sarah Jessica Parker was in the New York original. Instead, she's a more poignant, but still mischievous, version.

Perhaps Umberger puts her personal experience to work. She's been an animal welfare worker for 18 years. In any case, she turns Sylvia into a living, breathing doggie we can believe exists.

If you've always wondered what your dog was thinking, and what she would say if she could talk, you'll get a full agenda here - things Lassie never really could say, but may have been thinking. The squeamish should be warned that Sylvia has a four-letter word vocabulary. This is a play, after all, for adults.

Jay Lockamy is quite controlled and pleasingly restrained as the husband who finds a new love late in life. His wife thinks it's a ``male menopause moment,'' and she wishes it would go away.

Greg begins taking off afternoons to walk Sylvia. He loses his job. Her friends are repulsed by the dog. He feels rejected when Sylvia falls for a park dog named Bowser. Lockamy perfectly suggests middle-aged preoccupation - a time when a husband feels he needs a renewed love affair.

Candy Aston Dennis, as the wife caught in the middle of this triangle, brings levity to a role that might well have been thankless in lesser hands. Her job is primarily to react. She does so with often hilarious squirming. The three leads are aptly supported by Stan Baranowski as a macho dog owner, Lee Christopher as a repulsed feminine visitor and Wade Brinkely as a sexually ambivalent psychiatrist.

Hank Sparks' setting and lighting effectively suggests the New York milieu - with the help of background slides - although the apartment looks sparsely furnished.

Director G.F. Rowe has wisely advised his cast to allow the laughs to surface naturally. Ultimately, this is a play about unconditional and shared love.

Two paws up for ``Sylvia.'' She immediately joins Old Yeller, Lassie, Benji and Air Bud in our entertainment doggie hall of fame.

Even you ``Cats'' people will like it - and at a much cheaper ticket price. ILLUSTRATION: REVIEW

``Sylvia''

What: The comedy by A. R. Gurney

Where: Generic Theater, 912 W. 21st St., Norfolk

When: Thursdays through Saturdays at 8 p.m., Sundays at 2 p.m.,

through Oct. 5

Who: Directed by G.F. Rowe, featuring Kathy Umberger, Jay Lockamy

and Candy Aston Dennis

How Much: $15

Call: 441-2160