“We should talk.”
Despite the intention that Anne communicates in this opening line, as the play progresses we realize it ironically veils her truthful non-verbal urges. What she really wants to do is “fuck.” And by fuck she doesn’t mean-love making — which her husband Peter is suitably “good” at — but instead, her distinction refers to the aggressive, carnal act that would be more commonplace between two adolescent strangers after a Tuesday night at Smoke's.
Drawing on this division between love and lust, Edward Albee’s latest work — a two-act combination of his critically acclaimed first play The Zoo Story with the recently penned prequel Homelife — explores the tension between man’s caged animalistic impulses and the confines of middle-class banality.
The play follows a few hours in the life of Peter, a successful textbook publisher. Starting at home with a nuanced examination of his marital relationship, we then move to Central Park for an infamous conversation with a stranger, Jerry, on an all-but-arbitrary bench.
The acting is strong throughout, but it is Andrew Polk’s Jerry who really lights up the stage. His interpretation of this social outcast, the chaotic antithesis of Scott Cunningham’s Peter, brilliantly captures the comic absurdity of his role.
The real treat of the evening lies in the unification of the two acts. The inclusion of the prequel makes it as though we have been invited to a viewing of Albee's sketchbook, seeing how he envisioned Peter to have existed in the time before his arrival at the zoo.
In this world of franchises, where the lives of people who are famous for no apparent reason are spun off into hit TV series, would it be greedy to ask Albee for more?
At Home at the Zoo The Philadelphia Theatre Company 480 S. Broad St. Through Sat., April 19
