Monday, April 19, 2010

"Sylvia" Review Round Up


Critics and Audiences agree, Sylvia is a hit. Take a look... "

"Hilarious, splendid, and warm...the cast delivers the best-acted comedy that Jersey has seen
" - Read the review from The Star Ledger


"a splendidly acted, smartly directed new production," -
The New York Times


"Dratch pulls no punches in her portrayal of man’s best friend. She begs, scratches and sniffs with canine abandon. Her dog-like candidness had the audience howling at the plays opening night"..."Stephen DeRosa...is singularly worth the price of admission" - Recorder Newspapers

"A genius "Sylvia" comes to life at George Street Playhouse" - Home News Tribune

"Dratch delivers a totally winning performance" - Asbury Park Press

Do you agree? write your own review below!

Friday, April 2, 2010

Tails of Canine Devotion: Part II


The honor for most articulate and purple prose regarding the relationship between dog and man would have to go to George Graham Vest. He served as a Confederate Congressman during the Civil War and would go on to serve as a US Senator. Between the fall of the Confederacy and his future political career, Vest returned to his law practice in Missouri. In 1870 he took up a case representing a plaintiff whose hunting dog, a foxhound named Old Drum, was shot and killed by a sheep farmer for trespassing on his property. Vest’s winning closing testimony has been immortalized as the “Eulogy on the Dog”:

Gentlemen of the jury: The best friend a man has in this world may turn against him and become his enemy. His son or daughter that he has reared with loving care may prove ungrateful. Those who are nearest and dearest to us, those whom we trust with our happiness and our good name, may become traitors to their faith. The money that a man has, he may lose. It flies away from him, perhaps when he needs it the most. A man’s reputation may be sacrificed in a moment of ill-considered action. The people who are prone to fall on their knees to do us honor when success is with us may be the first to throw the stone of malice when failure settles its cloud upon our heads. The one absolutely unselfish friend that a man can have in this selfish world, the one that never deserts him and the one that never proves ungrateful or treacherous is his dog.

Gentlemen of the jury: A man’s dog stands by him in prosperity and in poverty, in health and in sickness. He will sleep on the cold ground, where the wintry winds blow and the snow drives fiercely, if only he may be near his master’s side. He will kiss the hand that has no food to offer, he will lick the wounds and sores that come in encounters with the roughness of the world. He guards the sleep of his pauper master as if he were a prince. When all other friends desert, he remains. When riches take wings and reputation falls to pieces, he is as constant in his love as the sun in its journey through the heavens.

If fortune drives the master forth an outcast in the world, friendless and homeless, the faithful dog asks no higher privilege than that of accompanying him to guard against danger, to fight against his enemies, and when the last scene of all comes, and death takes the master in its embrace and his body is laid away in the cold ground, no matter if all other friends pursue their way, there by his graveside will the noble dog be found, his head between his paws, his eyes sad but open in alert watchfulness, faithful and true even to death. – Burden v. Hornsby (1870)