Park Bench

Fifty years ago, The Zoo Story premiered in West Germany. As per Theater of the Absurd, the action involved two characters sitting on a bench. One man is Peter, a publisher and bland, bourgeois type. Reading peaceably in Central Park, he's accosted by a random bum, Jerry, who has just returned from the zoo. Jerry is eager to talk about the trip - and he might have a homicidal/suicidal urge or two. This was Edward Albee's first play. (He later became a household name with Who's Afraid of Virginia Woolf?) Fifty years later, Albee attached another act to The Zoo Story as a sort of prequel. He renamed the new work At Home at the Zoo, and banned any further productions of the original. After a few off-Broadway runs, At Home at the Zoo has found the perfect staging ground in Palm Beach Dramaworks. The sometimes-stolid theater has lately been on an existentialist bender. This production stars Todd Allen Durkin, whose brilliant stint as a disintegrating modern man in Thom Pain makes him the perfect fit. Albee's retouched masterpiece is in able hands.

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More About

• Edward Albee
• West Palm Beach
• Virginia Woolf
• Off-Broadway
• Arts, Entertainment, and Media

At Home at the Zoo shows Wednesdays through Sundays till June 24 at Palm Beach Dramaworks, located at 322 Banyan Blvd. in West Palm Beach. Tickets cost $42 or less. For showtimes, call 561-514-4042, or visit palmbeachdramaworks.org.
Wednesdays-Sundays. Starts: April 24. Continues through June 24, 2009