The Zoo Story is American playwright Edward Albee's first play; written in 1958 and completed in just three weeks. 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 with a wife, two daughters, two cats and two parakeets 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 peacefully on the park bench.
The play explores themes of isolation, loneliness, social disparity and dehumanization in a commercial world.
Source: Wikipedia
This one-act play concerns two characters, Peter and Jerry. Peter is a middle-class publishing executive with a wife, two daughters, two cats and two parakeets 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 peacefully on the park bench.
The play explores themes of isolation, loneliness, social disparity and dehumanization in a commercial world.
Source: Wikipedia
Edward Albee was born in Washington, DC and was adopted two weeks later and taken to Westchester County, New York. Albee's adoptive father, Reed A. Albee, himself the son of vaudeville magnate Edward Franklin Albee II, owned several theatres, where Edward first gained familiarity with the theatre as a child.
His adoptive mother was Reed's third wife, Frances. Albee left home when he was in his late teens, later saying in an interview, "They weren't very good at being parents, and I wasn't very good at being a son."
He attended the Rye Country Day School, then the Lawrenceville School, where he was expelled. He attended Valley Forge Military Academy in Wayne, Pennsylvania in 1943 and graduated in 1945 at the age of 17. He studied at Choate Rosemary Hall and graduated in 1946, then attended Trinity College in Hartford, Connecticut for a year and a half before being expelled for skipping classes and refusing to attend compulsory chapel in 1947. Perhaps ironically, the less than diligent student later dedicated much of his time to promoting American university theatre, frequently speaking at campuses and serving as a distinguished professor at the University of Houston from 1989 to 2003.
A member of the Dramatists Guild Council, Albee has received three Pulitzer Prizes for drama — for A Delicate Balance (1967), Seascape (1975), Three Tall Women (1994); a Special Tony Award for Lifetime Achievement (2005); the Gold Medal in Drama from the American Academy and Institute of Arts and Letters (1980); as well as the Kennedy Center Honors and the National Medal of Arts (both in 1996).
Albee is the President of the Edward F. Albee Foundation, Inc., which maintains the William Flanagan Creative Persons Center, a writers and artists colony in Montauk, New York. Albee's longtime partner, Jonathan Thomas, a sculptor, died on May 2, 2005, the result of a two year-long battle with bladder cancer.
Source: Wikipedia
His adoptive mother was Reed's third wife, Frances. Albee left home when he was in his late teens, later saying in an interview, "They weren't very good at being parents, and I wasn't very good at being a son."
He attended the Rye Country Day School, then the Lawrenceville School, where he was expelled. He attended Valley Forge Military Academy in Wayne, Pennsylvania in 1943 and graduated in 1945 at the age of 17. He studied at Choate Rosemary Hall and graduated in 1946, then attended Trinity College in Hartford, Connecticut for a year and a half before being expelled for skipping classes and refusing to attend compulsory chapel in 1947. Perhaps ironically, the less than diligent student later dedicated much of his time to promoting American university theatre, frequently speaking at campuses and serving as a distinguished professor at the University of Houston from 1989 to 2003.
A member of the Dramatists Guild Council, Albee has received three Pulitzer Prizes for drama — for A Delicate Balance (1967), Seascape (1975), Three Tall Women (1994); a Special Tony Award for Lifetime Achievement (2005); the Gold Medal in Drama from the American Academy and Institute of Arts and Letters (1980); as well as the Kennedy Center Honors and the National Medal of Arts (both in 1996).
Albee is the President of the Edward F. Albee Foundation, Inc., which maintains the William Flanagan Creative Persons Center, a writers and artists colony in Montauk, New York. Albee's longtime partner, Jonathan Thomas, a sculptor, died on May 2, 2005, the result of a two year-long battle with bladder cancer.
Source: Wikipedia
