Claudia Karvan And Nathan Page To Star In Edward Albee's THE GOAT OR, WHO IS SYLVIA?

Australian screen legend Claudia Karvan, known for her roles in The Secret Life of Us, Love My Way and Bump, returns to the STC stage for the first time in 25 years to play Stevie in Edward Albee's dark comedy The Goat or, Who Is Sylvia?, playing Roslyn Packer Theatre from 2 - 25 March.

Karvan's onstage husband Martin will be played by fellow screen star Nathan Page, known for his role as detective Jack Robinson in Miss Fisher's Murder Mysteries. A co-production between Sydney Theatre Company and State Theatre Company South Australia and directed by STCSA Artistic Director Mitchell Butel (Girls & Boys - Sydney Festival 2023), this Tony Award-winning play from one of theatre's darkest satirists follows Stevie and Martin as their seemingly perfect middle-class marriage is rocked to the core.

Butel says the play, a finalist for the 2003 Pulitzer Prize for Drama, is at once hilarious and utterly shocking.

"It's an exploration of desire, of transgression, of secrets, of betrayal, of rage, and revenge - and you will never be able to feel the same about a visit to a farm again," Mitchell says. "It's a really exciting piece about the limits of our tolerance and what happens when everything we believe to be true is turned on its head. As hilarious as the play is, Albee gave it the subtitle - Notes Towards a Definition of Tragedy - which gives you a sense of the huge and explosive arc of this play."

Karvan and Page will be joined onstage by Adelaide's Mark Saturno (STCSA's The Normal Heart, A View from the Bridge) and young talent Yazeed Daher (SBS' The Hunting, ABC's The Heights) in his mainstage debut, with set design by Jeremy Allen (White Pearl), costume design by Ailsa Paterson (Chalkface), lighting design by Nigel Levings (Girls & Boys) and sound from STCSA's resident sound designer Andrew Howard.

Karvan said it was going to be an "immense privilege" to return to tread the boards in a play written by Edward Albee, to whom she feels a special connection.

"Edward Albee is such an incredible artist and while I've never performed in one of his plays, I feel a special connection to him - I even named my son Albee after him," Karvan said. "Something about his outlook on life really clicks with me and I will be dedicating my performance to him."

She said The Goat or, Who is Sylvia?, like other works by Albee including Who's Afraid of Virginia Woolf?, was "deeply affecting and heartbreaking, as well as incredibly witty, funny, fast and outrageous".

"I am so excited to be in the company of live humans night after night," Karvan said. "I'm looking forward to finding the nuances and the new details each night, but also to relish in both the discipline and simplicity of it."

Albee is considered by many to be the greatest American playwright of his generation and in The Goat or, Who is Sylvia?, he combines acerbic comedy, his feather-ruffling taste for the profane, and his signature sense for all our petty foibles in this explosive night of acting.

The Goat or, Who is Sylvia? plays Roslyn Packer Theatre from 2 - 25 March following a season in Adelaide at the Dunstan Playhouse from 10 - 25 February.

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