| 1 |
THE (NOT SO) LITTLE DOG SNARLED *: Edward Albee’s Peter and Jerry, running at The Second Stage through December 30th Review by: Beth M, Dec 11, 2007 |
When a show listed on Broadwaybox is asking for someone to review it, this is something that I cannot ignore.
I found Peter and Jerry to be a brilliant play by a brilliant playwright. There are certainly quite a number of very powerful aspects that are extremely dark, unnerving and disturbing. However, for me, this is what makes this play such a powerhouse.
This play never lags for a moment, is endlessly fascinating and has ... read more absolutely superb acting. It offers many deep and underlying truths about life, which one will probably want to reflect upon. I am still thinking about this play the day after I saw it.
Albee’s Peter and Jerry is actually two one act plays that fit together rather seamlessly, even though they were written close to 50 years apart. The second act is Albee’s very famous “Zoo Story,” written in 1958 and which made him a household name as a master writer of the American stage.
The Zoo Story remains unchanged from the 1958 and other previous productions in its excellent reincarnation currently at The Second Stage. Mr. Albee wrote the first act, which he has called Homelife, just 6 years ago. This is the New York premier of Peter and Jerry. I would like to add that Mr. Albee will be 80 this coming March.
This is definitely a play for mature adults. I feel obliged to share that seeing this play should be weighed because of the very dark and extremely sensitive subject matter which include violence, sexual detail, including rather explicit talk about erogenous zones (though sometimes with a comedic flair), and unmistakable allusions along with some detail regarding “beastiality, “ in this context, human sex with an animal. Those of you who are happy veterans of Albee’s play of a few seasons ago, The Goat, or Who Is Sylvia, will be just fine. And Peter and Jerry has a female protagonist whose precisely timed insults and barbs are hurled across that stage in a manner completely worthy of the leading lady in Albee’s Whose Afraid of Virginia Wolfe. It has some perhaps horrifying moments, but all is done with exceptional taste so that things don’t become lurid.
This said, I genuinely feel that, unless one feels exceedingly squeamish (which would be understandable), I would very highly recommend this play.
Peter and Jerry is a three character play: Peter, his wife Ann, and Jerry, a man who Peter meets in Central Park.
Homelife is a sort of a”prequel” to the Zoo Story, which enhances the latter by providing the audience with significant and emotionally charged background events which reveal a great deal about Peter: his character, the difficulties in his marital life, and a story of a rather violent event that took place many years before, but which reveals a side of Peter, a seemingly mild mannered and amazingly emotionally controlled publisher of text books, which feels extremely surprising. This foreshadows, what we will come to learn, is a very different side of Peter’s personality, which is rarely exhibited during the play, but which ultimately, and as a result of perhaps more than enough provocation, comes to the foreground.
At the beginning of Homelife, we see Peter sitting by himself in his apartment, reading what he will come to share as a ”boring but important” text book, part of his job. His wife Ann enters their middle class apartment in the East 70’s and suddenly says those rather chilling words, “We should talk.” Peter, who is completely absorbed in his reading, takes more than a few seconds to realize what has just been said. Much of Homelife involves a great deal of goading and heckling behavior on Ann’s part as a frustrated and angry wife, but also one who is still able to make it clear that she does love her husband. Peter takes this all amazingly well, maintains his seemingly placid composure, and is very willing to listen to and reflect on what Ann is saying, and also is willing to express his understanding of th |
|
|
|
