Sylvia NYC Reviews and Tickets
Show-Score Member Reviews (411)
See it if ...you like to laugh and love good acting. Anna leith Ashford is amazing and oddly convincing as a dog, the rest of the cast is also great.
Don't see it if ...you are not willing to stretch your imagination to believe in a dog who is not wearing a dog costume and who speaks with her owners.
See it if You want something light hearted and fun!
Don't see it if You don't like talking dogs!
See it if You have ever encountered a dog and been amused by one.
Don't see it if You hate fun.
See it if Great cast, enchanting
Don't see it if You hate dogs
See it if you want a fun & satisfying night out, need your spirits lifted, or are a dog lover. In fact, if you have a dog, this play is a MUST SEE.
Don't see it if you don't like clever comedies or in general, don't understand why people have pets.
See it if u love Annaleigh Ashford (u don't? you will). The other startling perf is Robert Sella's as 3 dif. persons. MB & JW are delightful. I loved!
Don't see it if Forget that: SEE IT. Thanks Show-Score for you know what. Judi & I had a g/ time at Tender Bar chatting w/ DoubleDReviews and his brother.
See it if You like to laugh and want to be charmed by a fun, light play.
Don't see it if You expect a big huge Broadway production.
See it if you want to see the most amazing one man supporting cast ever, you love dogs, you have a high Matthew Broderick tolerance
Don't see it if you can't handle aggressive whimsy or dogs that look like pre-children Britney Spears but act like post-children Britney Spears.
Critic Reviews (49)
"When you have a dog played by a woman and rendered in human terms, this still is an awkward moment. You've got a woman in some pain obliged to be nice to a guy who, on some level, just caused it. You can make the metaphoric leap, kinda. But the moment is still emblematic of some of the tricky aspects of a comedy that now feels, well, problematic — not in an inter-species way but in matters of gender."
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"You’ve got to hand it to Matthew Broderick: He’s a reliable actor. You can always count on him being either wooden or downright lifeless. When his performance is merely serviceable — as it is in the new Broadway revival of 'Sylvia' — it counts as a triumph. Of course it helps that the show pairs him with the inimitable Annaleigh Ashford, who gives a wonderfully zany performance as the titular dog."
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"Just as quickly as a puppy can forget its mission du jour (be it bone or ball), so can a cynical audience member dither between delight and dismay at a 125-minute play about a man’s mutt-borne midlife-crisis. Eventually, the dog wears you down... Even to the most pessimistic, 'Sylvia' is innocuous and zippy, surprisingly foul-mouthed, and perhaps the very definition of disarmingly funny."
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"This truly is one of those must-see performances that will stick with you for some time. Broderick gives the sort of cartoonish, oddball performance that it works unusually well here, and he has terrific chemistry with Ashford. In their hands, 'Sylvia' is a most unusual, quite touching love story."
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"If you are a dog person, you are likely to fall in love with 'Sylvia.' However, Daniel Sullivan's production of A.R. Gurney's 1995 play is so warm and bitingly funny, you'd have to be an absolute Grinch to resist its immense charms."
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"'Sylvia' is a drop-dead-funny play, but like all of Gurney's work, it also possesses an undercurrent of churning melancholy... Ashford and Broderick make such an endearing pair that they manage to rip our hearts out even as we laugh our heads off. If their close onstage relationship (and our reaction to it) proves one thing, it's that the bond between humans and their pets cannot be broken."
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"While the play is a breezy, hip and sentimental comedy, there's always the visual subtext of a young woman happily and unconditionally fawning over the older man who keeps her at the end of a leash...Director Daniel Sullivan's whimsical production features a colorfully romantic view of Central Park and jazzy scoring, giving the evening an infectiously charming New York feel. Be sure to stick around after the curtain call for an extra dose of puppy love."
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"For all its calculated silliness, 'Sylvia' is, one suspects, as much a personal work as any other Gurney play. This becomes clear in the finale, which offers a fast forward to reveal 'Sylvia's' ultimate fate; it's a touching realization of the melancholy fact that the animals we love are almost certain not to outlast us...Anyone looking for a solid example of that most endangered of species, the smart boulevard comedy, should consider adopting 'Sylvia' for an evening's entertainment."
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