Stray mutt changes lives of married couple in quirky ‘Sylvia’

You know it. You don't love it.

That dog-owner-to-dog scolding when a pungent yellow puddle encircles a portion of your living room carpet. Goes like this:

You: "Did you do that?"

Dog: "I won't dignify that with an answer."

What? Your dog doesn't say that? Las Vegas Little Theatre's does.

"What goes through a dog's mind I don't know, but now I feel like maybe I do a little," says Penni Mendez, who portrays the title character of playwright A.R. Gurney's "Sylvia," an effervescent Labradoodle -- part Labrador, part French poodle -- with verbal skills unavailable to your garden-variety mutt.

"She sings some French torch songs to show the French poodle side -- a little Edith Piaf, a little Marion Cotillard," says Gillen Brey, who directs Mendez as the communicative canine in the comedy opening tonight on LVLT's mainstage. "She's got a great personality, she's got great lines, a great sense of humor."

Celebrity pedigree attends this Spot-on role -- Sarah Jessica Parker portrayed the wet-nosed wonder on Broadway -- in a story of a middle-age couple, finally empty nesters after 22 years, who are tested when husband Greg (Brian Scott) finds savvy Sylvia in the park and brings her home, to the consternation of his wife, Kate (Cindy Lee Stock).

Careerwise, Kate's beginning to bloom as a public school teacher, but Greg, no longer a hotshot financial trader, is feeling the pangs of loneliness, which Sylvia immediately remedies.

"Sylvia's a dog, but she represents more than that," Brey points out. "It becomes a lot like a mistress/wife situation, except that she's a puppy instead of a 20-year-old secretary. By doing it with a person, it's a way to bring comedy into that situation we've seen a thousand times, the midlife crisis, but without demeaning a young woman."

Conjuring an image that nails the point, Brey adds: "A 20-year-old sitting on the floor by his feet would be a whole different thing."

True, though the sight of Mendez splayed on the stage floor, head happily resting on Scott's thigh as he relaxes in his comfy chair and scans his newspaper (Review-Journal, thank you very much) creates an odd, open-to-interpretation impression.

" 'A hot bitch' -- that's what I get a lot," says the bubbly, good-natured Mendez about people's reactions to her role, which she leaps on in rehearsal like Fido with a chew toy.

"She's just fearless," Brey says. "She doesn't care what she looks like as long as she's conveying it."

Amen to that.

Donning a curly wig for her poodle-esque look, Mendez -- with white kneepads over her jeans to cushion the boo-boos from all that crawling -- is a doggie dynamo. She leaps on furniture. She wiggles her derriere (we must use that word -- she's part-French, after all).

She rolls over to accept a good belly-scratching from her co-star, legs flailing in pleasure. She wriggles wildly on her back, massaging it as if the floor were a back scratcher. She gazes adoringly at her master, exclaiming:

"I love you! I really do! What's for dinner? I think you're God!"

On a walk, she gets tangled in the leash, then races toward a cat under a parked car, screaming, "I wanna kill that (expletive)! You're a disgrace to the animal kingdom!" She tongue-wags, pulling off some professional-level panting.

"We have Listerine breath strips backstage," Mendez jokes.

All performed without an ounce of self-consciousness and with a wealth of brio. "I'm very, very bruised," Mendez admits. "When I'm on my hands and knees, even with kneepads, it's very difficult. I've got bruises on my elbow. I'm a mess."

You know what they say.

It's an actress-playing-a-dog's life.

Contact reporter Steve Bornfeld at sbornfeld@ reviewjournal.com or 702-383-0256.