The Zoo Story

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

The Zoo Story is American playwright Edward Albee's first play; written in 1958 and completed in just three weeks.^{[citation needed]} Originally, it was rejected by New York City producers, therefore it was first staged in Europe, premiering in West Berlin at the Schiller Theater Werkstatt on September 28, 1959. In its first American staging it was performed by the Provincetown Playhouse in 1960 and paired with Samuel Beckett's work Krapp's Last Tape.

This one-act play concerns two characters, Peter and Jerry. Peter is a middle-class publishing executive who lives in ignorance of the world outside his married life while Jerry is an isolated and disheartened man who is very troubled. These men meet on a park bench in New York City's Central Park. Jerry is desperate to have a meaningful conversation with another human being. He intrudes on Peter’s peaceful state by interrogating him and forcing him to listen to his life story and the reason behind his visit to the zoo. The action is linear, unfolding in front of the audience in “real time”. The elements of ironic humor and unrelenting dramatic suspense are brought to a climax when Jerry brings his victim down to his own savage level.

The catalyst for this shocking ending transpires when Peter announces that he "must be going". Jerry, in response, becomes incredibly angry. Unexpectedly, he pulls a knife on Peter, and then drops it as initiative for Peter to grab it in defense. When Peter holds the knife defensively, in almost a nonthreatening manner, Jerry charges him and impales himself on the knife. Peter is dazed and very disturbed at this, and Jerry dies almost peacefully on the park bench.

The play explores themes of isolation, loneliness, social disparity and dehumanization in a commercial world.

Plays by Edward Albee

The Zoo Story | The Death of Bessie Smith | The Sandbox | Fam and Yam | The American Dream | Who's Afraid of Virginia Woolf? | The Ballad of the Sad Cafe | Tiny Alice | Malcolm | A Delicate Balance | Everything in the Garden | Box | Sandbox | All Over | Seascape | Listening | Counting the Ways | The Lady From Dubuque | Lolita | The Man Who Had Three Arms | Finding the Sun | Marriage Play | Three Tall Women | The Lorca Play | Fragments | The Play About the Baby | The Goat, or, Who is Sylvia? | Occupant | Peter & Jerry