Edward Albee’s At Home at the Zoo
Written by Edward Albee
Directed by Lila Neugebauer
Signature Theatre
March 21, 2018
Production website
💉💉💉💉 out of 5

It is so great to back in New York and back in the theatre.  After a break of a few months it was so wonderful to curl up on a snowy Tuesday evening to watch essentially two characters tear through some language to create some beautiful Albee-esque existentialism.  The play was a combination of two one acts – the later being the classic “Zoo Story” that EVERYONE reads in college and debates for hours and EVERY young male actor gnashes their teeth (literally) to tell the infamous “dog story”.  What was new for me – was to see the play, “At Home” that was written as a precursor to the “Zoo Story” and gives us a bit of character background to the rather flat and enigmatic Peter.

Both plays start with a wonderful first line that launches the play and speaks of the adventure ahead.  At Home: “We should talk.” and Zoo Story’s “I’ve been to the zoo.”

At Home was the greatest treat for me.  I loved to see Peter before he goes to the park bench.  I love to see Peter and his marriage that must prompt him every Sunday to spend hours on the park bench.  Although “At Home” is just the two characters talking about what they would be talking about if they were the kind of couple that would wake each other up in the middle of the night to talk.  Yes, it is a puzzle of language.  Through the act we see that Peter is indeed lacking energy – especially in his “peter”.  He feels like he is loosing his circumcision and his penis is in retreat.  At the same time, of course, his wife is feeling her id fire up and she dreams of a brutal roughness to their love-making that she imagines can be done without any pain or inpropriaty — tall order.  Finally they settle on a fantasy in which their cats eat their birds, their children eat their cats and they finally feast upon their children.  Perhaps a dinner of “saltpeter” becomes their best choice.

Then Peter goes to the park and meets Jerry fresh from the zoo and all hell breaks out.  Not to rehash the story; or how a story becomes terror; and terror become territorial; and territorial becomes murder – but rest assured THIS “Zoo Story” is far from the rigid correct “Zoo Story” that we have seen before.  This story breathes with new life, new terror and a hell of a lot of fun.  Its final sting is fresh indeed!