It's puppy love for doggone adorable 'Sylvia' on Broadway

NEW YORK -- "Even when you hit me, I love you," says the title character in Sylvia, to Greg, a guy who has just brought her to his Upper West Side apartment.

Don't get the wrong idea. Sylvia is a dog -- a talking dog, obviously -- and Greg a mild-mannered, middle-aged fellow who has just rescued her from Central Park. The smack he administers, in the play's first moments, is a gentle one, and it's the harshest reprimand Sylvia will receive from her new master.

Sylvia (*** out of four stars), which opened Tuesday at Broadway's Cort Theatre, traces the love story between a man and that creature ordained by evolution as his best friend and greatest source of unconditional affection. "My aim in life is to please," Sylvia tells Greg and his decidedly wary wife, Kate, early on.

But Sylvia has her own needs; and as played by the adorable and astute comedic actress Annaleigh Ashford -- a Tony Award winner for her inspired daffiness in last season's revival of You Can't Take It With You -- she makes them known without apology.

This new production of the A.R. Gurney play, directed with a winking eye and a buoyant heart by Daniel Sullivan, casts Matthew Broderick as Greg, a man who has grown fed up with his work and perhaps a little itchy in his marriage. There's never any question that Greg and Kate love each other, but they seem to want different things at this juncture in their lives. Kate, an ambitious teacher -- played by a wonderfully wry Julie White -- feels newly liberated in their empty nest, and is eager to move forward in her career.

Greg, a salesman being pushed into trading commodities, feels disillusioned and restless. (The play is set in 1995, the year of its off-Broadway premiere.) Playing with Sylvia in the park, he feels reconnected and rejuvenated in an almost primal way. The dog becomes, essentially, the other woman, even clashing with Kate. "All you are is a menopausal moment," the frustrated wife tells her four-legged rival near the end of Act One.

Broderick is very much in his comfort zone playing the blithely goofy straight man. He has strong foils here in Ashford and White, and in Robert Sella, who multitasks flamboyantly as another over-attached dog owner, a boozy matron and a gender-bending shrink. (Sella overplays the latter two characters at points, though a recent preview audience ate up his ham.)

Ashford has the juiciest role, of course, and she plays it to hilt, without letting Sylvia chew the scenery (or Kate's red heels) entirely. The actress is a riot sliding on knee pads, wagging her legs around and rushing down the aisle to suggest hot pursuit of a male canine.

But it's Ashford's enormously expressive face that draws us in most, her eyes flaring and teasing and pleading, tickling and ultimately touching us. Even the unenlightened -- that is, folks who don't already love dogs -- are bound to lose their hearts.