Interludes

THE HANGOVER REPORT – Signature’s production of AT HOME AT THE ZOO: An incisive reminder of Albee’s singular voice

• By drediman
• March 5, 2018
• No Comments

Katie Finneran and Robert Sean Leonard in Edward Albee’s “At Home at the Zoo: Homelife & The Zoo Story” at the Signature Theatre Company.

This weekend, I caught Signature Theatre Company’s sharp Off-Broadway revival of Edward Albee’s double bill, At Home at the Zoo: Homelife & The Zoo Story. If anything, the pairing – first staged in 2004, adding a first act to the 1959 (!) play The Zoo Story – is a potent reminder of the singular voice of the late, great Albee (the influential playwright sadly passed away in 2016).

When we meet Peter in The Zoo Story, it’s hard to pinpoint exactly who he is. Even over the course of the seminal one-act play, Peter remains solely the vague target of Jerry’s jeering, increasingly threatening provocations. With the prequel Homelife, Albee fleshes out Peter’s character by giving us a snapshot of his upper-middle class domestic life via an unsettling interaction with his wife, Ann. This added history adds weight and dimension to the proceedings in the second half. Both plays explore the animalistic – even sado-masochisitic – tendencies beneath our civilized veneer. It’s surprising, and pleasing, to report that the piece remains as shocking as it is.

This pleasing outcome is largely due to talented director Lila Neugebauer’s incisive yet impressionistic (the designs are by Andrew Liberman) staging, which superbly enhances Albee’s heightened, confrontational text. The cast is equally superlative. As the congenial Peter, Robert Sean Leonard gives an insightful, progressively haunted Everyman performance. In addition, two-time Tony-winner Katie Finneran masterfully plays with the dualities simmering within Ann, and Paul Sparks is perhaps one of the most chilling, playfully menacing Jerry’s I’ve seen. An expert revival.

HIGHLY RECOMMENDED

AT HOME AT THE ZOO: HOMELIFE & THE ZOO STORY
Off-Broadway, Play
Signature Theatre Company
2 hours, 15 minutes (with one intermission)
Through March 25