Dec 10, 2009

The Zoo Story | Introduction

When Edward Albee wrote The Zoo Story in 1958, it was the first play that he wrote as an adult and only the second play that he wrote in his lifetime. His only other play was a sex farce that he wrote at the age of twelve. After being passed from friend to friend, The Zoo Story traveled from New York to Florence, Italy, to Zurich, Switzerland, to Frankfurt, Germany and was finally produced for the first time in Berlin, Germany. It opened on September 28, 1959, at the Schiller Theatre Werkstatt. After much critical praise in Germany, it was less than three months before The Zoo Story finally opened in New York. It debuted off-Broadway at the Provincetown Playhouse on January 14, 1960, and instantly had a strong impact on critics and audiences alike. The vast majority of the reviews were positive and many hoped for a revitalized theatre because of it. A few critics, however, dismissed the play because of its absurd content and seemed confused as to what Albee was trying to say with it.

The story, in simplest terms, is about how a man who is consumed with loneliness starts up a conversation with another man on a bench in Central Park and eventually forces him to participate in an act of violence. According to Matthew Roudane, who quoted a 1974 interview with Albee in his Understanding Edward Albee, the playwright maintained that he got the idea for The Zoo Story while working for Western Union: "I was always delivering telegrams to people in rooming houses. I met [the models for] all those people in the play in rooming houses. Jerry, the hero, is still around." Combining both realistic and absurd elements, Albee has constructed a short but multi-leveled play dealing with issues of human isolation, loneliness, class differences, and the dangers of inaction within American society. He focuses on the need for people to acknowledge and understand each other's differences. After garnering its initial critical praise, The Zoo Story went on to win the Village Voice Obie Award for best play and ran for a total of 582 performances. The Zoo Story continues to be a favorite with university and small theatre companies and persists in shocking and profoundly affecting its audiences.

The Zoo Story Summary

Edward Albee's The Zoo Story is a long one-act play in which "nothing happens" except conversation—until the violent ending. Shorn of much of the richness of Albee's utterly arresting language, and his astonishing nuances of psychological attack and retreat, the play can be described as follows:

A man named Peter, a complacent publishing executive of middle age and upper-middle income, is comfortably reading a book on his favorite bench in New York's Central Park on a sunny afternoon. Along comes Jerry, an aggressive, seedy, erratic loner. Jerry announces that he has been to the (Central Park) Zoo and eventually gets Peter, who clearly would rather be left alone, to put down his book and actually enter into a conversation. With pushy questions, Jerry learns that Peter lives on the fashionable East Side of the Park (they are near Fifth Avenue and 74th Street), that the firm for which he works publishes textbooks, and that his household is female-dominated: one wife, two daughters, two cats, and two parakeets. Jerry easily guesses that Peter would rather have a dog than cats and that he wishes he had a son. More perceptively, Jerry guesses that there will be no more children, and that that decision was made by Peter's wife. Ruefully, Peter admits the truth of these guesses.

The subjects of the Zoo and Jerry's visit to it come up several times, at one of which Jerry says mysteriously, "You'll read about it in the papers tomorrow, if you don't see it on your TV tonight.'' The play never completely clarifies this remark. Some critics think, because of statements Jerry makes about the animals, that he may have released some from their cages, while others think Jerry is talking about a death which has not yet happened, which might be headlined "Murder Near Central Park Zoo.''

The focus now turns to Jerry, who tells Peter that he walked all the way up Fifth Avenue from Washington Square to the Zoo, a trip of over fifty blocks. Adding Washington Square to Jerry's appearance and behavior, Peter assumes that Jerry lives in Greenwich Village, which in 1960, the year the play was first produced, was the principal "bohemian" section of Manhattan. Jerry says no, that he lives across the Park on the (then slum-ridden)... » Complete The Zoo Story Summary