God bless Edward Albee. He's as independent and surprising as ever. For years, he's been unsatisfied with his iconic one-act, a play credited with changing the direction of American theater, The Zoo Story.
It nagged me just a bit that it seemed to be not quite a two-character play – Jerry being so much longer a role – but more a one-and-a-half-character one. But the play “worked,” so why worry? Six years ago, however, I said to myself “There’s a first act here somewhere which will flesh Peter fully and make the subsequent balance better.” Almost before I knew it, Homelife fell from my mind to the page…intact.
He calls the new work Peter and Jerry. On public radio this morning, I heard Albee say he no longer is permitting professional productions of The Zoo Story as a stand-alone work. (Screenwriters are crying in their growing stacks of bills: they have nothing close to this kind of artistic integrity and power when they sell the ownership of their work.) He owns the play, he pointed out, and he can do with it as he likes. If critics and theater historians don't like it (and many don't), tough. God bless Edward Albee!
I played Peter in a 1970s production by Pemberton Free Theatre in Salisbury, Maryland, with Tom Strah as Jerry, directed by Jeff Rollins. Jeff and I recently exchanged emails about what an extraordinary adventure this was. Strah was terrific. I wasn't bad myself. It was an outdoor, single production in the country on a fine sunny day to a good audience.
Here's an interesting link: How Albee’s 'Zoo Story' Birthed 'Peter and Jerry'.
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