Originally, when Ruehl dragged the goat in, she -- like Clytemnestra at the end of Aeschylus' AGAMEMNON -- was drenched in its blood, and the dead creature itself was in full view of the audience. (She then said, grimly, "You were right. She had beautiful eyes.") Pullman cradled poor Sylvia in his arms downstage center, in a pose evocative of Michelangelo's PIETÀ.
Nervous laughter greeted much of the above, which I thought more a comment about contemporary audiences than anything wrong in what I thought was, in that moment, an ideal fusion of writing, staging and performance. It's my understanding that all of that was altered pretty quickly; certainly it was gone a month or so after it opened, when I saw it the second time.
I seem to remember additional lines in the first Martin/Ross scene that alluded to sexual interaction between them in college, or same-sex activity on at least one of their parts in those days. There was also an odd moment in the Martin/Billy scene in which Martin said something like "Why are you standing like that?" (Billy: "Like what?") Martin: "All sexy like that."
That's the best I can manage 15 years later. |
