Edward Albee launched his career in 1959 with The Zoo Story, a stark one-act depiction of a tragic encounter in Central Park between Peter, a buttoned-down fellow, and Jerry, a volatile man on the verge of explosion. The two-character play endures as a classic that often serves as a college introduction to Albee’s works.
As his career wound down during the early 2000s, Albee composed Homelife, a one-act that observes Peter sharing an intimate conversation with Ann, his wife, in their Upper East Side apartment shortly before he leaves for Central Park. Refusing to term this new drama as a prequel but rather the first act of a full-length play, Albee attached it to The Zoo Story. The result was produced under the title Peter and Jerry by Second Stage Theater in 2007.
During an interview I had with the playwright at that time, Albee declared that the two acts comprise an entity. “It is the whole play,” he said. “Things have happened to Peter in the first act that are going to be important to his reactions to Jerry in the second act. This is a fuller experience by far than just The Zoo Story.” Albee forged Homelife and The Zoo Story into one text (using a slightly modified 1999 version of the latter play, which he had amended over the years) that he retitled At Home at the Zoo.
Despite the late playwright’s assertion that At Home at the Zoo is a unified work, its new production by Signature Theatre suggests that the two acts are companion pieces that reflect Albee’s themes at the dawn and in the twilight of his career. In an effort to meld these plays visually for the production, Lila Neugebauer, the director, and Andrew Lieberman, the set designer, stage both within a large white box accented with Cy Twombly-like black squiggles.
The first act’s set is minimally furnished with a standing lamp and a wingback chair. There sits Peter, a middle-aged publishing executive, reading a dull textbook. Ann enters and says, “We should talk.”
And so they do, in a fond, sometimes amusing, occasionally sardonic, roundabout conversation that becomes an examination of the couple’s complacent relationship. Pensive in tone, their chit-chat recalls Albee’s studies in wintry marriages such as Marriage Play (1987) and The Goat, or Who Is Sylvia? (2002). Late in the play, Ann speaks of animal-like rage and the couple jokingly yearn for a chaotic event—perhaps a tornado—to shake up their orderly existence. Their remarks foreshadow what the second act will bring.
The set’s walls then are pushed upstage to deepen the space as a semi-circle of five park benches are positioned for The Zoo Story segment. Peter again is discovered reading. He is interrupted by Jerry, a scruffy-looking younger man with a leonine shock of hair who announces, “I’ve been to the zoo.”
Peter responds politely to Jerry’s blunt questions regarding his personal life and listens noncommittally to Jerry’s accounts of his own shabby times. Prowling around, telling sad stories about the lack of human connection in his existence, Jerry increasingly becomes agitated—and eventually Peter is drawn into this loner’s despairing embrace.
It may be argued that the themes of isolation and alienation within The Zoo Story are reflected to some degree in Homelife, which suggests how similar sores can fester within a marriage. Yet the clever, ironic banter between Peter and Ann is different in style and tone than the austere qualities inherent to The Zoo Story. In spite of Albee’s carpentry, they remain separate plays that do not quite synchronize.
Neugebauer draws fine work from accomplished actors. Robert Sean Leonard gives Peter a kindly nature that warms up his rather neutral character. Leonard’s skillful ability to listen thoughtfully to others complements his role. Katie Finneran depicts Ann as an affectionate wife who reveals a restive spirit. Always an intense presence, Paul Sparks appears a bit long in the bicuspid for Jerry, but he believably drives his sorrowful character over the emotional cliff. Under Neugebauer’s guidance, they deliver Albee’s heightened dialogue in a disarmingly natural manner.
At Home at the Zoo opened on February 21, 2018 at the Pershing Square Signature Center and runs through March 25. Information and tickets: signaturetheatre.com
