The Man Who Stared at a Goat

Edward Albee

Playwright Edward Albee wrote the controversial and ‘tongue-in-cheek’ play called The Goat; or Who is Sylvia? in 2002. While doing some research I saw one critic call the play “hilarious.” I really did not take it that way, read on and you’ll see why.  I read it about three years ago at UNT in Dr. Pettit’s Modern Drama class. For some reason the play always stuck with me. Perhaps it was the fact that it is a story about a man who cheats on his wife with a goat.

Oh it gets better, so much better…

Spoiler Alert – Essentially a husband and wife are having an argument because the husband is admitting his infidelity and that he has fallen in love with a goat. There are some awkward moments with a friend, and a really awkward moment with his son, but long story short, enraged, the wife performs a coup de gras on the goat. The play ends when she drags the apparently dead goat into the house and the husband cries “What did she ever do?” His wife retorts: “She loved you as much as I do.” And that’s the end. Hooray!

This play embodies everything that I love about literary criticism. Someone can watch it and become completely enraged at the fact that someone would write such a thing, become appalled and never try to learn anything from it. To those people I say consider this: Bill Pullman, and Sally Field have acted roles in this play and it won a Tony Award. So there has to be something to it right? There’s got to be more than inflammatory subject matter written just to make people squirm in their seats.

Some people are the other extreme... they try and deduce meaning from every letter of every word and can actually become devout “Albeenians” – or any other writer’s #1 fan. They could cry to the heavens that their interpretation is correct and they know every possible facet of what Albee was trying to say.

I am in the middle, I care about what the play has to say but I don’t take it so literally that I’m eye-balling livestock. I remember Dr. Pettit saying (in so many words – it was three years ago) “How does this make us think about love? We judge Martin (the husband) for his choice in partner, but how is that different from the way some people look at homosexuality?”

Dr. Pettit was by far the best teacher I had in college; I got so much out of his classes I took three of them just because he was teaching the subject. I’ve had a few teachers like this who made me think. Most of my favorite teachers made me feel like a complete idiot in the beginning, but then forced me to try again. But perhaps that will be a later blog. I digress.

To each his/her own. I know people very close to me would have the first reaction to the play, and I respect that about them as they are firm in their beliefs and opinions. Think about it, it takes great strength and consideration to be certain about anything and I would never judge someone for that.  For me it made me pause and think about the way I look at relationships and people in general.

So if my husband came home and told me he had fallen for a goat would I be ok with it? Ummm, there are not enough ways to say no without cursing. Haha!  But I do think that there is validity for uncontrollable emotions. Should all of them be acted upon, no (duh!), but I do think it was brave of Albee to pose the question and let his viewers (or in my case, readers) decide what to do with it.

So what do you think? Which reaction would/did you have? Have another play I should read?