peteg's blog - noise - theatre - 2014 10 04 AtHomeAtTheZoo

City Lit Theatre: Edward Albee's At Home at the Zoo

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Goldstar ticket, $14.50 + $4.25. I felt really bad as this venerable theatre group struggled to pull a crowd to this early and late Albee vehicle: perhaps too many wonder why he decided to add an act to the first play he wrote and rebrand it like a Microsoft product. The venue was the Edgewater Presbyterian Church, which is more like an old school; I can imagine many support groups find a home there. The weather was threatening so I left the bike at home and took the El up to the cute kitchen sink cafe. Later on I walked back to Argyle for a phở (decent, at Le's on Broadway) and then back up to Edgewater. I had hoped to make it to Big Chick's but wimped out when I saw how few the drinkers were. Next time.

As Wikipedia will tell you, this is a two-act thing that is mostly monologue, despite there being two people in each of them. The notional pivot/foil is Peter (Ted Hoerl), who gets worked over first by his wife Ann (Elaine Carlson) and then by Jerry (an excellent Mike Cherry). The actors are all solid but there's not much to it; the kids arrange their sexual deviancy on the internet these days, and have done for a decade and more now. Sure, we can make people squirm by talking confrontationally about such things, but Albee seemed oblivious to how things have moved, about depleted privacy and millenial sensitivities. Yes, the dialogue is vintage, but even so. I don't think we find out what happened at the zoo, despite Jerry's entertaining stories about caninicide. No, I did not take notes.

The red line El got me back to Grand, up which I schelpped in the cold for the second night in a row. When I got home I finally found out what the cowboy and the girl was all about.