Edward Albee
Updates a Classic
by Paul Myrvold

Edward Albee’s At Home at the Zoo
American Conservatory Theatre

It’s an interesting idea of Edward Albee, to revisit his seminal one act play The Zoo Story and flesh it out with a new opening act he calls Homelife. The Zoo Story, written in 1958 and first produced in the United States in 1960, depicts a Central Park encounter between an intense, emotionally unstable Jerry (Manoel Feliciano), who lives a marginal existence in a West Side rooming house, and Peter (Anthony Fusco), a staid publishing executive. Jerry drives the scene laying out his stark life in graphic terms (extremely graphic for the late Eisenhower era) pushing his gritty story onto polite, unassuming Peter with increasing aggressiveness, ultimately goading the somewhat older man into resentment, anger and, ultimately violent rage.

In the first act, entitled Homelife, Albee gives Peter the context he did not supply in The Zoo Story. Against Robert Brill’s brilliantly minimalist box set, which is framed by a black false proscenium to wide screen cinema proportions, Peter and his wife Ann (René Augesen) enter into an existential dialogue that brings into question the assumptions of their lives. Peter is a gentle, focused man, cute and likeable in a nerdy way, who concentrates on working his way through the galley proofs of a 900-page textbook, when his wife interrupts with a need to talk. In the course of the next hour, Albee’s playwriting mastery is clearly evident. In turns hilarious, touching, shocking and gripping (there is a pregnant pause that hangs in the air for what seemed liked minutes, a bold choice that had the audience holding their collective breath), Homelife is the superior play superbly produced. Kudos to director Rebecca Bayla Taichman and her excellent cast. René Augesen makes a subtle, fascinating Ann as she works her way through her character’s thoughts and emotions, frustrations and desires. She perceives that something is not right and she is starting “to think about thinking about” about their situation, a seemingly blissful, if uneventful marriage. She wants to be jolted into the heightened feeling of animal sensation.

Anthony Fusco, equally effective as the introverted, repressed Peter, is bewildered at first by the progress of the scene as long hidden desires, secrets and fantasies come to light. They find themselves in the quandary of existential freedom. Ann seems unable to say “yes” without immediately saying “no” or “anything” without “everything.” These are people at one remove from living, incapable of direct, responsive action, save in memory or in imagination. That is until Peter leaves the sterile apartment for the wilds of Central Park, setting up his fateful rendezvous with Jerry.

However, Albee’s scheme does not work entirely. Yes, we learn more about Peter and can see how it sets up the action of The Zoo Story, but the plays are radically different in style and substance. They do not fit together as one might hope. The fascinating dialogue of Homelife is modern and lean. The shocking dialogue of Homelife fits the pornographic era of the Twenty First Century and is much grittier than Jerry’s somewhat tamer shocks in the fifty year-old The Zoo Story. Albee has attempted to update the older play. He has increased the salary that pays for Peter’s East 74th Street apartment from $18,000 a year to $200,000. He changed a literary reference from J. P. Marquand (hardly a household name these days) to Stephen King. But these cannot do away with the feeling that, compared to Homelife, The Zoo Story has become a period piece, despite the program note “Time and Place: New York City, the present.”

This is to take nothing away from The Zoo Story’s status as a great play. Many great plays are period pieces – You Can’t Take It with You, for example. And ACT’s production is as fine as one could wish for with Manoel Feliciano giving a blistering portrayal of Jerry’s fateful trajectory.

But Homelife, as good as it is, cannot stand on its own; it is inextricably yoked to The Zoo Story, which will continue to be produced without its new partner.

Edward Albee’s At Home at the Zoo makes for a thoroughly entertaining, powerfully thought provoking evening of theatre and it runs through July 5 at the Geary Theatre in San Francisco. And since Albee has always written plays that are decidedly adult, leave the kids (younger teens too) at home.

The Great American Trailer Park Musical
San Jose Stage Company 

San Jose Stage Company’s production of The Great American Trailer Park Musical is a wonderfully entertaining piece of theatre with a superb cast. That it deals in stereotypes is obvious from the title. However, the show mocks these stereotypes by serving them up, putting them on a platter so we can get past our social sensibilities and have a laugh. This approach goes far in assuaging the twinges of discomfort that this old lefty felt while laughing uproariously at the foibles of the, perhaps, less fortunate. I feel a little better when it is the rich and powerful that get skewered.

The Florida tract of “manufactured homes” called Armadillo Acres is home to a delicious mélange of individuals whose individual quirks and domestic situations produce the fodder for this low rent soap opera. A trio of storytellers who function as a kind of Greek chorus introduce themselves and their neighbors, comment on the action and play out the bit parts when the story ranges farther afield than one can throw a stick.

Bad Ass Betty (Diana Torres Koss, one the best singers and comedians in our greater Bay area) is a survivor whose late, little lamented husband is buried just off stage. Keite Davis as the irrepressibly smart mouthed Lin (short for Linoleum, a moniker honoring the floor upon which she was born) lives for the occasional conjugal visits she enjoys with her death row husband. The utterly adorable Halsey Varady displays perfect comic timing as Pickles the hilariously stupid, questionably pregnant teenaged wife of a perpetually absent chorus boy husband.

The action kicks into high gear with the arrival of Pippi, a stripper on the lam from a bad relationship. Fiercely attractive and vocally powerful, Allison F. Rich is ideally equipped for this role and exudes a provocative sexuality that lures Norbert, a neighbor with a nearby hookup and an agoraphobic wife, into infidelity. As Norbert, Kevin Blackton lends a whimsical amiability and a patented rumbling bass voice to the hapless toll taker. Lydia Lyons as his angst-ridden wife Jeanie is touching as a woman who struggles literally to put a foot outside her door. Her number “Panic” is a comedic cri de coeur.

Rounding out the cast, Robert Brewer makes an edgy maniac out of pen-sniffing, aerosol huffing, pistol twirling Duke, who is determined to track down his girl friend Pippi and get her back… or kill her, whichever works.

The music by David Nehls is an infectious pastiche of country rock with hints of other genres dropped in like sprinkles on a sundae and his lyrics are clever and original. Music director Spencer Williams and his hard driving combo keep the tempi bright and Dottie Lester-White’s choreography, delightfully detailed and almost manic keeps the joint jumpin’ and players in high gear.

The Great American Trailer Park Musical runs through July 5.

Opening in July…

Shakespeare Santa Cruz survived its financial crisis of last winter and opens its new season in July with the perennial favorites A Midsummer Night’s Dream (July 22–Aug 30) and Julius Caesar (Aug 1–30) both playing in the open air of the lovely Festival  Glen Theatre on the campus of the University of California–Santa Cruz. On the main stage of the Performing Arts Center, SSC offers Shipwrecked: An Entertainment - The Amazing Adventures Of Louis de Rougemont (As Told ByHimself) – July 21–Aug 30.

A breathless blur from the web site (www.shakespearesantacruz.org) says, “ a fantastical romp of good old-fashioned story telling. We sail off to the far side of the world with Louis and relive his amazing adventures with him. Embracing theatricality in its truest and purest form, Shipwrecked weaves its magic spell as Louis retells his stories of adventure, daring, intrigue, and dissolution … but in the end fills our hearts with joy and laughter.”

Theatreworks presents the world premiere of Tinyard Hill a new musical that tells the story of “a handsome young blacksmith hammering out a living at the historic smithy his family has owned for generations. When an out-of-this-world beauty and an out-of-the-blue draft notice arrive within days, his life is turned upside down.” Tinyard Hill is “set in the ’60s to a foot-stompin’ country-pop score… this feisty new musical tells of family, fortune, patriotism, and romance in an era of irresistible change.” July 1-Aug 16 at Lucie Stern Theatre in Palo Alto.

And don’t Forget…

San Benito Stage Company offers up Guys And Dolls July 16 – Aug 2 at the Granada Theatre in Down Town Hollister…For rock opera fans, City Lights Theatre Company presents The Who’s Tommy July 16–Aug 23…PacRep continues with The Blue Room at the Circle Theatre through July 18 and Laughter on the 23rd Floor at the Golden Bough Theatre through July 19…Carrie Fisher’s one woman show Wishful Drinking returns to Berkeley Rep July 9 – 23…Gavilan STAR presents a youth edition of Grease July 17 & 18…and Tim and Frances Tompkins take the stage at El Teatro Campesino’s Playhouse with Good Morning San Juan: A Musical Concert July 17 & 18.

For more information about these productions and more, see OnStage.

	~Paul Myrvold has been a member of actors equity since 1972. He is currently performing in My Fair Lady at the Western Stage in Salinas. Send your theatre information to Paul at outabout@garlic.com