Love’s a game in Christina Calvit’s Sylvester, adapted from the 1957 Regency-set novel Sylvester: or The Wicked Uncle by Georgette Heyer. And lest you think this just some reviewer trying to come up with a tidy opening line for their piece: nah, love is, like, literally a game. Specifically, it’s a board game. There are rules, squares, chutes and ladders, and a giant stack of cards with instructions for the players. The set for director Dorothy Milne’s production (designed by Alan Donahue) is a game board that’s been set on its side, and the cast begins the show by excitedly dumping the story’s dual protagonists into their starting positions—and into roles that both of them are, at least at the outset, pretty loath to play.
This meta-ness serves the play well, for the most part. Heyer’s story is itself quite aware of genre conventions, which it toys with to great effect. The titular Sylvester (Andres Enriquez) is the Duke of Salford and, in point of fact, a decidedly un-wicked uncle to his young nephew and ward, Edmund. Sylvester is, however, rather proud and standoffish, and sports a pair of thick, gothic eyebrows that lead Phoebe Marlow (Samantha Newcomb), a young country lady, to model the antagonist in her upcoming novel after him. Phoebe is horrified when she discovers that her parents have tried to match her with Sylvester, and is equally relieved when she discovers that he’s as not into it as she is. Of course, they do end up falling in love through a series of high-spirited, period-appropriate goings on—and it’s only partially because he decides to make her fall in love with him to prove a point. (Men, amiright?) If this were a one-act play, things might end there, but then Phoebe’s novel gets published—and becomes the toast of London due to her slashing parodies of many well-known society types—her “evil” vision of him screws up everything.
Enriquez and Newcomb are both wonderful as Sylvester’s dueling leads; they’re the kind of charming that renders their characters’ faults all the more lovable. And the ensemble around them is quite good as well; they make hay with the show’s exaggerated sense of playfulness. (Edmund, for instance, is played by several “unwilling” ensemble members as a game of hot potato; each of them is dismayed when they discover the petulant child’s signifying costume piece, a cap, to have alighted upon their head.) It is clearly Milne and Calvit’s intent that Sylvester run as far from the stereotype of a stodgy period piece as possible. Thus, we get a cast clad in Converse sneakers and a score that layers delicate, baroque arpeggios on top of a pulsing, slinky club beat. (Costumes are by Rachel Sypniewski and sound and music is by Curtis Edwin Powell.)
The primary issue with the play is that the busyness of its concept kind of overwhelms the production. There is very little flow within the dozens of scenes soldered together; there’s no rhythm, and too much dead air. There’s even a hint of tentativeness from the actors, a lack of confidence that keeps them from fully committing and saps the play’s vitality. It should be about five to ten minutes shorter than it is—not because anything needs to be cut, but because it needs more energy. Love might indeed be a game, but Sylvester can feel too much like a scrimmage.
Lifeline Theatre. By Christina Calvit. Based on the novel by Georgette Heyer. Directed by Dorothy Milne. With ensemble cast. Running time: 2hrs; one intermission.