Back to the bench

The Zoo Story is Edward Albee’s first success and dates from 1958. This one-acter has an intriguing story full of unusual details, but recently the playwright thought it important to give a bit more information to the audiences and wrote a first act to it, premièred only recently. In the New York first production of the revised version, renamed Peter and Jerry, director Pam MacKinnon rightly chose a staging concentrated on the actors. All scenic elements are reduced to the minimum and the audience had all the time of the world to savour the optimal level of acting offered here. As Ann, Johanna Day brought an extremely likable personality and an excellent voice. As Peter, Bill Pullman was naturalness itself, his character entirely built on subtlety. He score many and many points in the difficult Central Park scene, in which most of the text is given to the role of Jerry – brilliantly performed by Dallas Roberts. It is difficult to describe perfection and I will not try – Roberts was just perfect, one of the best pieces of acting I have seen in a long while.

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