The Zoo Story is a one-act play by American playwrightEdward Albee. His first play, it was written in 1958 and completed in just three weeks. The play explores themes of isolation, loneliness, miscommunication as anathematization, social disparity and dehumanization in a materialistic world. Today, professional theatre companies can produce The Zoo Story either as a part of Edward Albee's at Homeat the Zoo, or as a standalone play. Its prequel, Homelife, written in 2004, however, can only be produced as a part of Edward Albee's at Home at the Zoo.
This one-act play concerns two characters, Peter and Jerry, who meet on a park bench in New York City's Central Park. Peter is a wealthy publishing executive with a wife, two daughters, two cats, and two parakeets. Jerry is an isolated and disheartened man, 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 stories about his life 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. Eventually, Peter has had enough of his strange companion and tries to leave. Jerry begins pushing Peter off the bench and challenges him to fight for his territory. Unexpectedly, Jerry pulls a knife on Peter, and then drops it as initiative for Peter to grab. When Peter holds the knife defensively, Jerry charges him and impales himself on the knife. Bleeding on the park bench, Jerry finishes his zoo story by bringing it into the immediate present: "Could I have planned all this. No... no, I couldn't have. But I think I did." Horrified, Peter runs away from Jerry, whose dying words, "Oh...my...God", are a combination of scornful mimicry and supplication.
Revised version
Albee wrote a prequel to The Zoo Story, titled Homelife. Homelife is written as the first act, with The Zoo Story as the second act, in a new play called Edward Albee's At Home at the Zoo. Homelife was first read publicly at the Last Frontier Theatre Conference. Christopher Wallenberg wrote of The Zoo Story: "Over the years, he'd always had a nagging feeling that something was missing from the piece’s unsettling encounter between two very different men on a Central Park bench..." Albee said: "The Zoo Story is a good play. It's a play that I'm very happy I wrote. But it's a play with one and a half characters. Jerry is a fully developed, three-dimensional character. But Peter is a backboard. He’s not fully developed. Peter had to be more fleshed out."
Production history
The two-act play Peter and Jerry had its world premiere at the Hartford Stage in 2004, with Pam MacKinnon directing and Frank Wood as Peter. The play was produced Off-Broadway at the Second Stage Theatre in 2007, and starred Bill Pullman, Dallas Roberts and Johanna Day. It was titled Peter and Jerry. The play, titled Edward Albee's At Home at the Zoo played at American Conservatory Theater in San Francisco in June 2009, with Anthony Fusco as Peter, René Augesen as his wife Ann, and Manoel Felciano as Jerry. As of December 2009 it played in its Seattle premiere at Theater Schmeater. At Home at the Zoo had its premiere Pittsburgh production and was the inaugural show for the Ghostlight Theatre Troupe in Gibsonia, PA in July 2010. It starred Rich Kenzie as Peter, Mary Romeo as Ann and Ned Johnstone as Jerry and was directed by Gabe Herlinger. At Home at the Zoo opened on February 23, 2018 at New York's The Signature Theater, starring Katie Finneran, Robert Sean Leonard and Paul Sparks.
The Zoo Story is referenced in the 1993 film Grumpy Old Men. The Zoo Story is a central element in the novelQiṣṣat hadīqat al-ḥayawān, by Moroccan playwright and novelist Yūsuf Fāḍil, published Dār al-Fanak, Casablanca, 2008, which deals with the milieu of actors and playwrights in 1970s Morocco and Moroccans in Paris. The two main characters of the novel, Al-Sīmū and Rašīd, want to perform a Moroccan version of the play, but their copy of Albee's work is missing essential pages. The Zoo Story is referenced in Jay McInerney's Story of My Life. The Zoo Story is referenced in Bill Hader's Barry
