After reading Zoo Story and getting past the initial creepiness I felt, I decided I really liked the short play and wanted to find out more about this Edward Albee whom I had heard so little about before now. So after a quick search on Google and found a plethora of results. Many of them were about Zoo Story and a recent addition by Albee of a second act. The article I ended up in described the new act as a prequel, which opens before the scene we all know and takes place in Peter's house with his "pleasant looking, unexceptional" wife. This prequel is supposed to shed light on Peter's life, but I say, do we really need to know more about Peter's life? He was created to be a pretty unexceptional, middle-class guy whose story we are all familiar with. Even his name, Peter, was made to make him out to be an average guy. Jerry is supposed to be the one whose life is interesting and full of substance, a life too many people like Peter who live in their own bubbles fail to understand. So exploring Peter's life further seems frankly to be a waste of time since we already have a pretty clear understanding and perception of his life, just as Jerry does. In fact, I think it detracts from the value of Peter as a generic middle-class character. By creating him as such a common American ideal life, Albee made Peter into someone that could easily represent many of us or someone we all know. But when his life is explored, you lose some of that generic, mediocre feeling that Jerry indirectly accuses him of being. I think Zoo story is better off without this prequel, and glad that we read the original, the 'good one'.
1 comment:
I'm glad you mentioned this, Ian. I think Albee published this prequel just recently because I remember reading about it sometime in the last year.
You also make some interesting comments about how you see it as possibly detracting from the original play. It would be fun too see this new version. Be on the lookout for when it shows in Chicago.
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