The Goat, or Who is Sylvia?

When theatre imitates life it’s rarely a coincidence, but (spoiler alert) one of the more grim news stories of recent weeks has lent this production of Edward Albee’s 2002 play unexpected topicality.

If you already have tickets, you might want to stop reading now and come back after the show.

There’s really no dancing around the fact that this is a play about goat-fucking – and those who come to it cold learn as much by the end of the opening scene.

More precisely, it is about how we respond to such behaviour. A typical reaction might be shock and disgust, followed by the urge to make jokes (or, if the nanny-fiddler in question is one's spouse, to commit mariticide).

Albee embraces the comic potential of his subject matter, and then some, but he is also interested in digging much deeper, exposing hypocrisy and prejudice and generally setting the cat among the pigeons (or more aptly, the dog among the geese).

As with Dennis Kelly's Orphans, the outstanding nuclear family drama that was staged at the Traverse last year, the beauty of this play is in the telling, not the revelation. The anticipation of a domestic meltdown has the audience transfixed. In the wrong hands this could all go quite horribly wrong, but Dominic Hill’s direction is flawless and his cast absolutely superb.

The aptly named John Ramm plays Martin, a world-famous architect who has just turned 50 and is in his professional prime. His wife Stevie (Sian Thomas) is his match intellectually and elegantly beautiful too, while their teenage son Billy (Kyle McPhail) is blossoming into a worthy Scrabble rival for either of them.

Their beautifully designed world, convincingly evoked by Jonathan Fensom's living room set, is shattered when the identity of Martin's secret love is revealed after a visit from his subtly repugnant old friend Ross (Paul Birchard), and the ferocious battle that follows is spellbinding.

Albee has crafted his family with such incredible care that when husband and wife call a temporary ceasefire to despair over a misuse of the word “doubtless”, it is somehow entirely convincing. Such humanising quirks have a disarming effect – while the play is tremendously entertaining, we are also asked to consider some serious questions about how we respond to all kinds of deviant sexual behaviour, and why.