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The American Dream & The Zoo Story
Pulitzer Prize-winning author Edward Albee is one of our most important American playwrights. And nowhere is his dramatic genius more apparent than in two of his probing early works, The American Dream and The Zoo Story.
The New Yorker hailed The American Dream as "unique ... brilliant ... a comic nightmare, fantasy of the highest order." The story of one of America's most dysfunctoinal families, it is a ferocious, uproarious attack on the substitution of artificial values for real values-a startling tale of murder and morality that rocks middle-class ethics to its complacent foundations.
The Zoo Story is a harrowing depiction of a young man alienated from the human race-a searing story of loneliness and the desperate need for recognition that builds to a violent, shattering climax. Together, these plays show men and women at their most hilarious, heartbreaking, and above all, human-and demonstrate why Edward Albee continues to be one of our greatest living dramatists.
The New Yorker hailed The American Dream as "unique ... brilliant ... a comic nightmare, fantasy of the highest order." The story of one of America's most dysfunctoinal families, it is a ferocious, uproarious attack on the substitution of artificial values for real values-a startling tale of murder and morality that rocks middle-class ethics to its complacent foundations.
The Zoo Story is a harrowing depiction of a young man alienated from the human race-a searing story of loneliness and the desperate need for recognition that builds to a violent, shattering climax. Together, these plays show men and women at their most hilarious, heartbreaking, and above all, human-and demonstrate why Edward Albee continues to be one of our greatest living dramatists.
127 pages, Paperback
First published January 1, 1959
About the author
Edward Albee
188 books542 followersNoted American playwright Edward Franklin Albee explored the darker aspects of human relationships in plays like
Who's Afraid of Virginia Woolf?
(1962) and
Three Tall Women
(1991), which won his third Pulitzer Prize.
People know Edward Franklin Albee III for works, including The Zoo Story , The Sandbox and The American Dream .
He well crafted his works, considered often unsympathetic examinations of the modern condition. His early works reflected a mastery and Americanization of the theater of the absurd, which found its peak in European playwrights, such as Jean Genet, Samuel Barclay Beckett, and Eugène Ionesco. Younger Pulitzer Prize-winner Paula Vogel credits daring mix of theatricalism and biting dialogue of Albee with helping to reinvent the postwar theater in the early 1960s. Dedication of Albee to continuing to evolve his voice — as evidenced in later productions such as The Goat or Who Is Sylvia? (2000) — also routinely marks him as distinct of his era.
Albee described his work as "an examination of the American Scene, an attack on the substitution of artificial for real values in our society, a condemnation of complacency, cruelty, and emasculation and vacuity, a stand against the fiction that everything in this slipping land of ours is peachy-keen."
People know Edward Franklin Albee III for works, including The Zoo Story , The Sandbox and The American Dream .
He well crafted his works, considered often unsympathetic examinations of the modern condition. His early works reflected a mastery and Americanization of the theater of the absurd, which found its peak in European playwrights, such as Jean Genet, Samuel Barclay Beckett, and Eugène Ionesco. Younger Pulitzer Prize-winner Paula Vogel credits daring mix of theatricalism and biting dialogue of Albee with helping to reinvent the postwar theater in the early 1960s. Dedication of Albee to continuing to evolve his voice — as evidenced in later productions such as The Goat or Who Is Sylvia? (2000) — also routinely marks him as distinct of his era.
Albee described his work as "an examination of the American Scene, an attack on the substitution of artificial for real values in our society, a condemnation of complacency, cruelty, and emasculation and vacuity, a stand against the fiction that everything in this slipping land of ours is peachy-keen."
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Displaying 1 - 30 of 192 reviews
April 5, 2019
شاهکارهای ترجمه:
Oh my
آه من!
Aren't you something
تو چیزی نیستی؟
There there now
اینجا اینجا حالا!
Oh my
آه من!
Aren't you something
تو چیزی نیستی؟
There there now
اینجا اینجا حالا!
September 29, 2019
Oh wow Albee. The Zoo Story has to be one of theatre’s greatest one act plays. It features only two characters. It is like a final act that emerged out of a Beckett play. I was blown away. The growing tension between the characters was so well architected.
The American Dream is also a solid play, the subject within the dysfunctional home is Grandma going to the retirement home. Instantly relatable although a bit disturbing.
5 stars for the Zoo Story.
The American Dream is also a solid play, the subject within the dysfunctional home is Grandma going to the retirement home. Instantly relatable although a bit disturbing.
5 stars for the Zoo Story.
November 30, 2020
ZOO STORY
4 stars
Middle class follies
A mild mannered editor sits on a park bench, winds up in a mad confrontation with a lower class man at the end of his tether. You’ll have to pick your way through this short but powerful play and think what it means to you. Perhaps it’s about alienation and loneliness of two different kinds; lower class and upper middle class. Maybe it’s about the misery of the lumpen proletariat contrasted with bourgeois complacency and self-satisfaction. The lower class shouts and demands attention, but inevitably makes no headway, and winds up sacrificing itself for upper class causes anyway. You know—the working class boys getting shot in upper class wars for power and resources. Then there are just meaningless fights because we haven’t gone far past the ape. It’s a grim view of humanity expressed in the strongest terms, but in dramatic form, not in lectures.
THE AMERICAN DREAM
2 stars
Huh?
Two characters in search of a review. One is a young man about 30-32 years old, dressed in a dark blue Toyota t-shirt and blue jeans. He’s wearing sneakers. We’ll call him Ganesh. The second is an older dude named Bob, wearing a lavender shirt with a green tie, black trousers with a small pinstripe. Wearing black shoes and no jacket.
Ganesh: So, Bob, what did you think of “The American Dream”?
Bob: The team that beat the Russians at Lake Placid in 1980?
Ganesh: No, not “team”, The American DREAM, the play by Albee.
Bob: (straightens up, tries to look intelligent) Oh, well, I thought it was lacking in prelapsarian, semiotic praxis as well as being full of conjunctural, ontological narrative. He could have dabbled in ethnographic agency a bit more, but then he would have been accused of gendered, hermeneutic subjectivities. This dyadic project is only commodified discourse writ large.
Ganesh: Uh, I don’t quite follow. What are you talking about?
Bob: I have no idea. I’m a man of limited sensibility or else this play is an drastically dated dud. [winks] You like that? That’s alliteration!
Ganesh: [confused] Yeah, but, I mean………
Bob: And to tell the truth, I couldn’t get what the play was about. They called it a “comedy” but I barely managed a single smile. My level of interdiscursive desire sank to a problematical level. I missed the point entirely.
Ganesh: Huh?
Bob: Yeah, right on, brother, that’s what I’m talkin’ about! The Emperor’s suit didn’t come back from the dry cleaners’ on time.
Exit, stage right.
4 stars
Middle class follies
A mild mannered editor sits on a park bench, winds up in a mad confrontation with a lower class man at the end of his tether. You’ll have to pick your way through this short but powerful play and think what it means to you. Perhaps it’s about alienation and loneliness of two different kinds; lower class and upper middle class. Maybe it’s about the misery of the lumpen proletariat contrasted with bourgeois complacency and self-satisfaction. The lower class shouts and demands attention, but inevitably makes no headway, and winds up sacrificing itself for upper class causes anyway. You know—the working class boys getting shot in upper class wars for power and resources. Then there are just meaningless fights because we haven’t gone far past the ape. It’s a grim view of humanity expressed in the strongest terms, but in dramatic form, not in lectures.
THE AMERICAN DREAM
2 stars
Huh?
Two characters in search of a review. One is a young man about 30-32 years old, dressed in a dark blue Toyota t-shirt and blue jeans. He’s wearing sneakers. We’ll call him Ganesh. The second is an older dude named Bob, wearing a lavender shirt with a green tie, black trousers with a small pinstripe. Wearing black shoes and no jacket.
Ganesh: So, Bob, what did you think of “The American Dream”?
Bob: The team that beat the Russians at Lake Placid in 1980?
Ganesh: No, not “team”, The American DREAM, the play by Albee.
Bob: (straightens up, tries to look intelligent) Oh, well, I thought it was lacking in prelapsarian, semiotic praxis as well as being full of conjunctural, ontological narrative. He could have dabbled in ethnographic agency a bit more, but then he would have been accused of gendered, hermeneutic subjectivities. This dyadic project is only commodified discourse writ large.
Ganesh: Uh, I don’t quite follow. What are you talking about?
Bob: I have no idea. I’m a man of limited sensibility or else this play is an drastically dated dud. [winks] You like that? That’s alliteration!
Ganesh: [confused] Yeah, but, I mean………
Bob: And to tell the truth, I couldn’t get what the play was about. They called it a “comedy” but I barely managed a single smile. My level of interdiscursive desire sank to a problematical level. I missed the point entirely.
Ganesh: Huh?
Bob: Yeah, right on, brother, that’s what I’m talkin’ about! The Emperor’s suit didn’t come back from the dry cleaners’ on time.
Exit, stage right.
January 23, 2009
For modernism that seems to have been written last week, Albee delivers a passionate account of two different views of Americana. Just under the surface, I always believed, Albee was barely in control of himself, pushing the envelope of absurdity because it was more than absurd to him: he makes it seem all to real, the characters not directly representative but rather being an analogy of whom they seem
An American Dream is about, largely enough of the disintegration of society through lack of concern for it. It is the substitution of one thing for the real, the easy and thing at hand for the substantial, the replaceable for the repairable. One can’t help understand now that in 1960, he must have come up against a tremendous amount of naysayers, those who believed that in order to progress, all we had to so was have a happy ending. Albee never provided that.
The Zoo Story is more stark and hence, necessarily less absurd because it acts as a kind of schematic for his later work. It is essentially a long one act in which not much happens until the end. Instead it is about a conversation between two men, from two distinct walks of life, one of which initiates the conversation asking personal questions. The first man finally spurs the second to kill him, forcing him into the chaos or, “to go to the zoo,” something from which his social position isolates him.
The zoo remains the figurative place where the chaos of one’s life occurs. The first man is familiar with the chaos of life, the second one not at all. This is a story about how class and position insulates one from feeling things, especially the insecurities of the life for so many. Without knowing about this chaos, we become complacent and defensive when others seek to show us.
The Zoo Story is a hard play, one which is evidently far more popular on college campuses than anything else. The rest of us have forgotten and become too comfortable to want to attend any longer.
An American Dream is about, largely enough of the disintegration of society through lack of concern for it. It is the substitution of one thing for the real, the easy and thing at hand for the substantial, the replaceable for the repairable. One can’t help understand now that in 1960, he must have come up against a tremendous amount of naysayers, those who believed that in order to progress, all we had to so was have a happy ending. Albee never provided that.
The Zoo Story is more stark and hence, necessarily less absurd because it acts as a kind of schematic for his later work. It is essentially a long one act in which not much happens until the end. Instead it is about a conversation between two men, from two distinct walks of life, one of which initiates the conversation asking personal questions. The first man finally spurs the second to kill him, forcing him into the chaos or, “to go to the zoo,” something from which his social position isolates him.
The zoo remains the figurative place where the chaos of one’s life occurs. The first man is familiar with the chaos of life, the second one not at all. This is a story about how class and position insulates one from feeling things, especially the insecurities of the life for so many. Without knowing about this chaos, we become complacent and defensive when others seek to show us.
The Zoo Story is a hard play, one which is evidently far more popular on college campuses than anything else. The rest of us have forgotten and become too comfortable to want to attend any longer.
October 26, 2014
Mix Lewis Carroll with Jacques Tati, as one critic
suggested when reviewing "The American Dream," and
you have a lethal, hilarious and very satiric cocktail. This may be his Best Play. The cast includes : Mommy, Daddy and Young Man (who explains his price, for those who can afford it, to the childless duo). Albee's comedy puts you in stitches - then he yanks 'em out.
suggested when reviewing "The American Dream," and
you have a lethal, hilarious and very satiric cocktail. This may be his Best Play. The cast includes : Mommy, Daddy and Young Man (who explains his price, for those who can afford it, to the childless duo). Albee's comedy puts you in stitches - then he yanks 'em out.
August 27, 2018
While The Zoo Story is one of my all time favorite plays, The American Dream is an altogether different artistic endeavor. It explores how fulfilling empty societal roles (such as Mommy and Daddy) can lead to a broken shell of an American Dream, bereft of emotion and focused only on making money.
November 7, 2016
Holy Crackers! Zoo Story is fantastic! Youthful rage and the kind of shock I've sought for months. RIP E. Albee. You'll be missed.
November 1, 2022
As a study in masculinity, only Rocky comes close to beating this.
Two men from very different walks in life meet in a park and go round after round with one another verbally until . . . one goes down. And you cheer. At least, I did.
He fought for his bench!
Short and sweet as a knockout. Read this play for the first time or again.
Two men from very different walks in life meet in a park and go round after round with one another verbally until . . . one goes down. And you cheer. At least, I did.
He fought for his bench!
Short and sweet as a knockout. Read this play for the first time or again.
November 13, 2017
دوتا نمایشنامه از ادوارد آلبی با ترجمه ناهید طباطبایی(نشر چشمه) باتم امریکن دریم
نمایشنامه دوم (رویای امریکایی)خیلی متفاوت و خوب بود.
به دو ست داران ادبیات آمریکا ونمایشنامه توصیه میشه.
نمایشنامه دوم (رویای امریکایی)خیلی متفاوت و خوب بود.
به دو ست داران ادبیات آمریکا ونمایشنامه توصیه میشه.
November 6, 2022
we are all caged 😐 also sad that there are barriers around people
November 18, 2021
“The Zoo Story” is a play that has two characters, one setting (a bench in Central Park), and performed, is 15 minutes. Jerry and Peter have brief exchanges that take on an importance such that the dialogue plays out as an interrogation of communication itself for the audience. Jerry challenges Peter’s use of formalities or his niceties or even phrases:
PETER: My dear fellow, I...
JERRY: Don’t my dear fellow me.
PETER: Was I patronizing? I believe I was; I’m sorry. But you see, your question about the classes bewildered me.
JERRY: And when you bewildered you become patronizing? (20).
The effect is a meta-dialogue, with the men bickering about bickering. This caused me to feel conflicted. Peter is at once petty and yet also innocent--these are speaking conventions--and yet, why has it become convention to dismiss others with the cover of a phrase? What is our social condition that creates the need for these conventions? Obviously, for Peter, situations like this one; the encounter with a stranger in public. That this takes place in a public space--a park--is significant because it highlights tension between the promise and the threat; the ideala and the fears of public space; at the end of the day, the place where different classes meet. Albee uses Jerry’s absurd ranting to reveal the destitution of his social class (“WITH GOD WHO IS A COLORED QUEEN WHO WEARS A KIMONO AND PLUCKS HIS EYEBROWS, WHO IS A WOMAN WHO CRIES WITH DETERMINATION BEHIND HER CLOSED DOOR” (35)). In contrast, Peter’s bewilderment serves to show his that he is a sensible, middle-class professional.
But of course, that contrast fades until the climax of Peter’s laughing fit, by which he symbolically moves alongside Jerry, who literally sits besides him. We hear Jerry’s story of his struggle to communicate with a dog—an absurdity, until we realize that he struggles just as much to communicate with Peter. There is the neat little irony of the play’s title, which is the story that Peter promises to tell. In double irony, Jerry essentially enlists Peter to act out in a play in which he performs a role to an inevitable and devastating end. We are confronted with a somewhat hokey comparison of the animal zoo and the so-called human zoo outside. The captivity, isolation, alienation, exploitation, the one-sided gaze and objectifying communication mediated by metal bars and a safe distance of the former is referenced in order to expose the supposed mirror qualities of the latter.
Irony strikes once again when we witness Peter acting out a morally depraved role that is “unexpected” for his class and generally reserved for people of Jerry’s “type”—irrational, impoverished, queer, familyless…
The play is dated, but the long psychological distance covered in such a short amount of time packs a punch to the reader. It is also more threatening than the second play paired in this collection, “The American Dream.” Obviously, at the time of debut (1960), it was threatening enough, as Albee reveals in the preface that one critic was so offended by it that he refused to review Albee’s subsequent play. But I thought there was so much more comedy in the “American Dream,” that it muted some of the menace.
The overarching and heavy-handed theme is that we approach relationships as transactions. The explicit passages are like songs by Gang of Four:
MOMMY: Well, she’s right. You can’t live off people. I can live off you, because I married you. And aren’t you lucky all I brought with me was Grandma. A lot of women I know would have brought their whole families to live off you. All I brought was Grandma. Grandma is all the family I have.
DADDY: I feel very fortunate.
MOMMY: You should. I have a right to live off of you because I married you, and because I used to let you get on top of me and bump your uglies; and I have a right to all your money when you die (67).
The shifting alliances of characters is reminiscent of “Who’s Afraid of Virginia Woolf?” but the conversation is just so damn hilarious, with Grandma’s disparaging remarks about old people and everyone’s emotionally-vapid and daft way of speaking: MRS. BARKER: “My brother’s a dear man, and he has a dear little wife, whom he loves, dearly” (84). I would love to see this performed live!
PETER: My dear fellow, I...
JERRY: Don’t my dear fellow me.
PETER: Was I patronizing? I believe I was; I’m sorry. But you see, your question about the classes bewildered me.
JERRY: And when you bewildered you become patronizing? (20).
The effect is a meta-dialogue, with the men bickering about bickering. This caused me to feel conflicted. Peter is at once petty and yet also innocent--these are speaking conventions--and yet, why has it become convention to dismiss others with the cover of a phrase? What is our social condition that creates the need for these conventions? Obviously, for Peter, situations like this one; the encounter with a stranger in public. That this takes place in a public space--a park--is significant because it highlights tension between the promise and the threat; the ideala and the fears of public space; at the end of the day, the place where different classes meet. Albee uses Jerry’s absurd ranting to reveal the destitution of his social class (“WITH GOD WHO IS A COLORED QUEEN WHO WEARS A KIMONO AND PLUCKS HIS EYEBROWS, WHO IS A WOMAN WHO CRIES WITH DETERMINATION BEHIND HER CLOSED DOOR” (35)). In contrast, Peter’s bewilderment serves to show his that he is a sensible, middle-class professional.
But of course, that contrast fades until the climax of Peter’s laughing fit, by which he symbolically moves alongside Jerry, who literally sits besides him. We hear Jerry’s story of his struggle to communicate with a dog—an absurdity, until we realize that he struggles just as much to communicate with Peter. There is the neat little irony of the play’s title, which is the story that Peter promises to tell. In double irony, Jerry essentially enlists Peter to act out in a play in which he performs a role to an inevitable and devastating end. We are confronted with a somewhat hokey comparison of the animal zoo and the so-called human zoo outside. The captivity, isolation, alienation, exploitation, the one-sided gaze and objectifying communication mediated by metal bars and a safe distance of the former is referenced in order to expose the supposed mirror qualities of the latter.
Irony strikes once again when we witness Peter acting out a morally depraved role that is “unexpected” for his class and generally reserved for people of Jerry’s “type”—irrational, impoverished, queer, familyless…
The play is dated, but the long psychological distance covered in such a short amount of time packs a punch to the reader. It is also more threatening than the second play paired in this collection, “The American Dream.” Obviously, at the time of debut (1960), it was threatening enough, as Albee reveals in the preface that one critic was so offended by it that he refused to review Albee’s subsequent play. But I thought there was so much more comedy in the “American Dream,” that it muted some of the menace.
The overarching and heavy-handed theme is that we approach relationships as transactions. The explicit passages are like songs by Gang of Four:
MOMMY: Well, she’s right. You can’t live off people. I can live off you, because I married you. And aren’t you lucky all I brought with me was Grandma. A lot of women I know would have brought their whole families to live off you. All I brought was Grandma. Grandma is all the family I have.
DADDY: I feel very fortunate.
MOMMY: You should. I have a right to live off of you because I married you, and because I used to let you get on top of me and bump your uglies; and I have a right to all your money when you die (67).
The shifting alliances of characters is reminiscent of “Who’s Afraid of Virginia Woolf?” but the conversation is just so damn hilarious, with Grandma’s disparaging remarks about old people and everyone’s emotionally-vapid and daft way of speaking: MRS. BARKER: “My brother’s a dear man, and he has a dear little wife, whom he loves, dearly” (84). I would love to see this performed live!
April 27, 2014
I really like both plays, but this review is about "The Zoo Story." In order to appreciate it fully you have to understand the driving impulse behind Theatre of the Absurd and the dilemma of the existential condition. The play grapples with horror of living an existence of complete dislocation - nothing seems connected to anything else. Jerry's discovery - that he cannot forge a connection with anyone, not even a dog - is the foundation of his despair. It reminds me very much of Roquentin's experiences in Sartre's "Nausea." So, if you like that kind of thing, "The Zoo Story" will be a thought provoking read. Unlike Sartre though, Albee's play is very funny in parts. Establishing a relationship with a dog who hates you, trying to kill it with kindness and then just trying to kill it, seems like a twisted version of what happens in so many romantic relationships - no, they don't even have to be romantic - just a relationship with someone you're desperately trying to establish contact with. Agonizing loudly over a DOG in the same speech as GOD, who "turned his back on the whole thing some time ago," is both comedic and philosophically interesting. Now that I'm through Kierkegaard's "The Sickness Unto Death," I think I understand Jerry better, although I still believe that his suicide is caused by an error in his perceptions about the human condition.
Albee's play is not as lovely as Beckett's "Waiting for Godot," but there are moments of genius.
Albee's play is not as lovely as Beckett's "Waiting for Godot," but there are moments of genius.
This entire review has been hidden because of spoilers.
October 26, 2015
I only read The American Dream. It is Albee's look at how the American Dream has changed over time. He seems to believe that today the American Dream is only about good looks, shallowness, and materialism. I don't disagree with the analysis since many Americans glorify movie actors, sports figures and wealthy corporate owners. However, the play was boring and repetitious. Even though it is a one-act play, it was way too long! This was supposed to be a comedy, but I found only one line to be humorous. None of the characters were interesting. I certainly am being kind to give this play 2 stars.
February 12, 2017
Fantastic!
Peter and Jerry are two men with very different stories and lives, one is living the American Dream while the other is struggling to find acceptance and a place in the world. But differences sometimes lead to coincidences and that's what happens in Central Park, they coincide in that bench; and they have quite a chaotic conversation...
“People can't have everything they want. You should know that; it's a rule; people can have some of the things they want, but they can't have everything.”
Peter and Jerry are two men with very different stories and lives, one is living the American Dream while the other is struggling to find acceptance and a place in the world. But differences sometimes lead to coincidences and that's what happens in Central Park, they coincide in that bench; and they have quite a chaotic conversation...
“People can't have everything they want. You should know that; it's a rule; people can have some of the things they want, but they can't have everything.”
February 20, 2014
I can't remember the last time I read "The Zoo Story" but its power hasn't lessened over the years. Here in his first play, Edward Albee is already peerless in his command of vitriolic dialogue unleashing a fury against the status quo, an incisive rage that he sustained throughout his career. He may stylize the anger with the satirical "The American Dream" but even in this latter one-act, Albee's poisoned pen drips blood. Albee quote: "That's what happens in plays, yes? The shit hits the fan."
September 8, 2012
I was in a production of Zoo Story in maybe 1974...at Calvin College... loved it. Played Peter.
November 28, 2015
5 Stars for a play for the first time.
One of the GREATEST plays I've ever read in my life.
Highly recommended fellows :).
One of the GREATEST plays I've ever read in my life.
Highly recommended fellows :).
June 4, 2019
We read The Zoo Story in class as a way to help understand the Marxist theory and analytic lens, and it was a very insightful tale to read.
May 1, 2018
مسرحية هزلية satirical غير مباشرة اجتماعية ساخرة.. اللغة مودرن وبسيطة
بيسخر من أمريكا عن طريق عيلة من الطبقة الوسطى، عن طريق الحاضر والماضى الجيل الاول(الجدة) والتانى(الآباء) والتالت(الشاب)..
بيسخر من تفاهة وسطحية القيم الاجتماعية والاخلاقية من النفاق من الانتهازية من المادية السائدة فى المجتمعات الأمريكية.. بيعرض لينا قساوة البنت على أمها واهمالها لابنها وشخصها الأنانى مع جوزها وحبها لفرض السيطرة عليه وضعف رأيها قدام السلطات اللى أعلى منها اجتماعياً ومادياً..
من ناحية تانيه القصة سيرة ذاتيه لحياة Albee نفسه وأهله، مامته بباه وجدته اللى كانت المفضلة عنده.
فى اسقاطات غير مباشرة مش هتتفهم من أول مره لما قريت أراء النقاد بدأت افهمها.
يعاب ع الكاتب ان أحيانا كان بيكرر الكلام كتير، وده عكس ما قال النقاد، بعتبره انعكاس لتفاهتهم واللاجدوى من حواراتهم.
بيسخر من أمريكا عن طريق عيلة من الطبقة الوسطى، عن طريق الحاضر والماضى الجيل الاول(الجدة) والتانى(الآباء) والتالت(الشاب)..
بيسخر من تفاهة وسطحية القيم الاجتماعية والاخلاقية من النفاق من الانتهازية من المادية السائدة فى المجتمعات الأمريكية.. بيعرض لينا قساوة البنت على أمها واهمالها لابنها وشخصها الأنانى مع جوزها وحبها لفرض السيطرة عليه وضعف رأيها قدام السلطات اللى أعلى منها اجتماعياً ومادياً..
من ناحية تانيه القصة سيرة ذاتيه لحياة Albee نفسه وأهله، مامته بباه وجدته اللى كانت المفضلة عنده.
فى اسقاطات غير مباشرة مش هتتفهم من أول مره لما قريت أراء النقاد بدأت افهمها.
يعاب ع الكاتب ان أحيانا كان بيكرر الكلام كتير، وده عكس ما قال النقاد، بعتبره انعكاس لتفاهتهم واللاجدوى من حواراتهم.
November 3, 2020
BRAVO! For me, the best books are those that make you go online. These are the books that nobody would be able to catch all the ideas from after one read. These are the books which you don’t only want to reread but also need to reread and each time you find more things and idea buried deeply between the lines.
A clash of humanism and materialism, one American dream gets replaced by another…
Two plays that are so different and similar at the same time. Both of them make us think about the values we possess as a society. Have we failed or is there still any chance to make amends?
A clash of humanism and materialism, one American dream gets replaced by another…
Two plays that are so different and similar at the same time. Both of them make us think about the values we possess as a society. Have we failed or is there still any chance to make amends?
February 19, 2022
دو نمایشنامه درخشان و ابزورد از آلبی.
رویای امریکایی، به مسخره گرفتن رویای آمریکایی و نهاد خانواده در فرهنگ امریکاست.
داستان باغ وحش هم داستان گفتگو محور دو شخصیت در دوقطب مخالف طبقه متوسط است. متوسط رو به بالا و متوسط رو به پایین. یکی همین حالا از باغ وحش دیدن کرده و دیگری در خانه اش چندین حیوان خانگی دارد.
رویای امریکایی، به مسخره گرفتن رویای آمریکایی و نهاد خانواده در فرهنگ امریکاست.
داستان باغ وحش هم داستان گفتگو محور دو شخصیت در دوقطب مخالف طبقه متوسط است. متوسط رو به بالا و متوسط رو به پایین. یکی همین حالا از باغ وحش دیدن کرده و دیگری در خانه اش چندین حیوان خانگی دارد.
August 1, 2018
I really enjoyed reading this short drama tinged with pitch-black comedy that provokes wry smiles.
The play consists of one scene: A man decides to break his loneliness by meeting instantly a random person on his way out of the zoo. This strange meeting culminates in a tragic and absurd situation that reflects Albee’s perspective on the absurdity of life.
The conversations alternate with long monologues. Their awkwardness remind Ionesco’s emphasis on the breakdown of the communication.
The story told by a character about his successive interactive experiences (that shifts from violence to pity) with a dog lends to the play a surreal atmosphere. It is interpreted as an allegory through which Albee examines the human complex behavioral choices.
Like Beckett and Ionesco, Albee stroves to convey, in a humorous approach, his view of the intensity of human isolation and the loss of significant human communication in our modern age. Instead of recapitulating directly his concerns, Albee subtly evokes throughout the conversations between the two characters of the play many existential questions related to the anxiousness of twentieth-century man.
The beast was there.. looking at me.. I looked at him; he looked at me.. I think.. I think. We stay a long time that way.. still, stone-statue.. just looking at one another.. but during that twenty seconds or two hours that we looked at each other’s face, we made a contact. Now, here is what I had wanted to happen: I love the dog now and I wanted him to love me.
***
I have tried to love, and I had tried to kill and both had been unsuccessful by themselves.
***
Written and performed after WWII in a period that has witnessed the rising of the Beat Generation, Albee's theater play, according to R. Ahouansou, “would echo the malaise of post WWII America with its spiritual vacuum and stultifying materialism. (..) Everything was sacrificed to Money; spiritual values lost their ground to materialistic considerations that deadened man's heart and soul spiritual decay set in with londiness and misery for those who were hungry for human relationships, human contact and companionship, the Beat Quest "par excellence".
I recommend the reading of his interesting interpretation of the text. Ahouansou examines the ideas and the aspects that should be heeded by the reader/viewer
http://greenstone.lecames.org/collect...
The play consists of one scene: A man decides to break his loneliness by meeting instantly a random person on his way out of the zoo. This strange meeting culminates in a tragic and absurd situation that reflects Albee’s perspective on the absurdity of life.
The conversations alternate with long monologues. Their awkwardness remind Ionesco’s emphasis on the breakdown of the communication.
The story told by a character about his successive interactive experiences (that shifts from violence to pity) with a dog lends to the play a surreal atmosphere. It is interpreted as an allegory through which Albee examines the human complex behavioral choices.
Like Beckett and Ionesco, Albee stroves to convey, in a humorous approach, his view of the intensity of human isolation and the loss of significant human communication in our modern age. Instead of recapitulating directly his concerns, Albee subtly evokes throughout the conversations between the two characters of the play many existential questions related to the anxiousness of twentieth-century man.
The beast was there.. looking at me.. I looked at him; he looked at me.. I think.. I think. We stay a long time that way.. still, stone-statue.. just looking at one another.. but during that twenty seconds or two hours that we looked at each other’s face, we made a contact. Now, here is what I had wanted to happen: I love the dog now and I wanted him to love me.
***
I have tried to love, and I had tried to kill and both had been unsuccessful by themselves.
***
Written and performed after WWII in a period that has witnessed the rising of the Beat Generation, Albee's theater play, according to R. Ahouansou, “would echo the malaise of post WWII America with its spiritual vacuum and stultifying materialism. (..) Everything was sacrificed to Money; spiritual values lost their ground to materialistic considerations that deadened man's heart and soul spiritual decay set in with londiness and misery for those who were hungry for human relationships, human contact and companionship, the Beat Quest "par excellence".
I recommend the reading of his interesting interpretation of the text. Ahouansou examines the ideas and the aspects that should be heeded by the reader/viewer
http://greenstone.lecames.org/collect...
October 12, 2020
The Zoo Story—4.5/5
The American Dream—5/5
October 3, 2022
felt like a fever dream. would be better if it was a gay romance tbh
December 10, 2015
This is an excellent book containing two of Albee's earliest masterworks. This is a crash course in the Absurd way of life and understanding. I'm an Aburdist and not even Camus or Kafka could do for the Absurd what Albee did with it in these two one act plays. Of course, Albee would elevate the philosophy and expand upon it even more with Who's Afraid of Virginia Woolf? but The Zoo Story as well as The American Dream serve as a quick one-two-punch to the existential gut, The Zoo Story having the potential to eclipse even Virignia Woolf? for some, and certainly more powerful than The American Dream. Yes, The Zoo Story is the better of the two pieces, but having mentioned that I consider them both to be masterpieces, that's quite like saying the cure for cancer is preferable to the cure for world hunger, it's ridiculous that I even felt the need to compare.
Both The Zoo Story and The American Dream are must reads for anyone who wants to know the answers to questions they don't know how to ask themselves. For a uniquely American take on a uniquely European philosophical perspective, look no further than Albee. You might even become an American Absurdist yourself. After all, as Albee makes emphatically clear, being an Absurdist is the same thing as being an American, on par with calling something Blue-ish Blue or someone a Liberal Left-Winger. American Absurdism is the same thing as saying Absurdly Absurd, patriotically and existentially certain, infinitely so.
The American Dream
An excellent satire, crafted in quick strokes of courageously harebrained self-reference, deft sociological insight, and the kind of deeply black and profoundly articulate humor, the kind of comedy that eloquently belittles philosophical posturing and derails wrongly effete audience-confidence, all while saying something incredible about the American condition, The American Dream is the kind of fast comic opera one could only expect from Edward Albee. It's a play about America--the wish, the reality, the farce--and how absurd it all is.
The Zoo Story
Ladies and gentlemen, I have found the king of my absurd...
A violent philosophical statement about the impotent alienation of young men and the raging bulls of the absurd. The Zoo Story is Camus on speed, Beckett on shock therapy, and Kafka binge-eating American cheeseburgers with some sort of curious, fixed grin on his lucid, logical face. The Zoo Story is Edward Albee wearing some sort of smash-mouth tiara, draped in a Japanese kimono, and plucking his eyebrows fiercely in a shattered glittering mirror. The Zoo Story is about Sisyphus as the postmodern idiot-savant. The Zoo Story is beyond masterful. Albee's early play is beyond even words. The Zoo Story simply is ...
Well, there you have it. Now, go read these plays, read more Albee, hoist that boulder, and mind your supper, then maybe, maybe Mommy and Daddy won't chop off your you-know-what and gouge out those beady, quizzical little whatsits and instead leave you in peace to chat it up with Grandma before the van man arrives.
Both The Zoo Story and The American Dream are must reads for anyone who wants to know the answers to questions they don't know how to ask themselves. For a uniquely American take on a uniquely European philosophical perspective, look no further than Albee. You might even become an American Absurdist yourself. After all, as Albee makes emphatically clear, being an Absurdist is the same thing as being an American, on par with calling something Blue-ish Blue or someone a Liberal Left-Winger. American Absurdism is the same thing as saying Absurdly Absurd, patriotically and existentially certain, infinitely so.
The American Dream
An excellent satire, crafted in quick strokes of courageously harebrained self-reference, deft sociological insight, and the kind of deeply black and profoundly articulate humor, the kind of comedy that eloquently belittles philosophical posturing and derails wrongly effete audience-confidence, all while saying something incredible about the American condition, The American Dream is the kind of fast comic opera one could only expect from Edward Albee. It's a play about America--the wish, the reality, the farce--and how absurd it all is.
The Zoo Story
Ladies and gentlemen, I have found the king of my absurd...
A violent philosophical statement about the impotent alienation of young men and the raging bulls of the absurd. The Zoo Story is Camus on speed, Beckett on shock therapy, and Kafka binge-eating American cheeseburgers with some sort of curious, fixed grin on his lucid, logical face. The Zoo Story is Edward Albee wearing some sort of smash-mouth tiara, draped in a Japanese kimono, and plucking his eyebrows fiercely in a shattered glittering mirror. The Zoo Story is about Sisyphus as the postmodern idiot-savant. The Zoo Story is beyond masterful. Albee's early play is beyond even words. The Zoo Story simply is ...
Well, there you have it. Now, go read these plays, read more Albee, hoist that boulder, and mind your supper, then maybe, maybe Mommy and Daddy won't chop off your you-know-what and gouge out those beady, quizzical little whatsits and instead leave you in peace to chat it up with Grandma before the van man arrives.
January 23, 2015
Okay, this collection is my first exposure to Edward Albee, and I have to say that his writings are bizarre in a way that catch me off-guard constantly. I also have Who's Afraid of Virginia Woolf?, which I will start soon. I think I can only take doses of this playwright at a time, however.
As for this collection, I will share my thoughts for each play respectively.
The Zoo Story:
This play is my favorite of the two, and it is bizarre in a way that leaves me just kind of sitting there confounded for a minute. I had no idea where it was going, so I was pretty shocked by the ending (which I will not spoil because I'm nice like that). The whole time, I actually was wondering what Jerry was even talking about; however, he did not seem completely insane like I expected him to be. Peter for me kind of represents the readers confusion for me, because I could totally relate to him sometimes throughout the course of the play. I enjoyed The Zoo Story thoroughly.
The American Dream:
Meh. I wasn't too impressed with this one. From other reviews I have read, I am apparently supposed to get a lot of poignant feelings out of this play, but I just got a whole lot of confusion and mixed feelings at the conclusion. I don't know if I missed something, but it was not too emotionally moving for me; however, it was funny to some degree (ex. Daddy getting "sticky wet"). It wasn't my cup of tea, but do inform me if any of you think there is a point I am missing to this play.
All in all, I don't think that Albee is really the right playwright for me, but I will extend my patience through one more play.
As for this collection, I will share my thoughts for each play respectively.
The Zoo Story:
This play is my favorite of the two, and it is bizarre in a way that leaves me just kind of sitting there confounded for a minute. I had no idea where it was going, so I was pretty shocked by the ending (which I will not spoil because I'm nice like that). The whole time, I actually was wondering what Jerry was even talking about; however, he did not seem completely insane like I expected him to be. Peter for me kind of represents the readers confusion for me, because I could totally relate to him sometimes throughout the course of the play. I enjoyed The Zoo Story thoroughly.
The American Dream:
Meh. I wasn't too impressed with this one. From other reviews I have read, I am apparently supposed to get a lot of poignant feelings out of this play, but I just got a whole lot of confusion and mixed feelings at the conclusion. I don't know if I missed something, but it was not too emotionally moving for me; however, it was funny to some degree (ex. Daddy getting "sticky wet"). It wasn't my cup of tea, but do inform me if any of you think there is a point I am missing to this play.
All in all, I don't think that Albee is really the right playwright for me, but I will extend my patience through one more play.
July 25, 2012
I have not read The American Dream; it is The Zoo Story which I read with great interest and excitement years ago during a Grade 12 English class. My group was to perform a scene from The American Dream, but we were finished preparing it and there was still time left over. So seeing this other play contained in the same volume, I decided it would be a good way to spend my time.
I was rewarded. It is a simple one-act play: two men meet on a park bench, get into a conversation, and it rolls on from there into an exploration of loneliness, miscommunication, alienation, and as so often on the stage (especially in work from this era), the search for meaning amidst modernity and materialism.
It is not quite absurdist; at least, it does not approach the levels of Beckett's Godot or Stoppard's Rosencrantz and Guildenstern in its absurdity, though I was drawn to it because of my love for those other two. So there are similarities, resemblances. But it does have the feel of modernist irony at its best, not to mention modernist simplicity. Two men, a bench, a conversation is all that is needed for a searching examination of deep and important human themes.
I read it again recently after finding a copy in a used bookstore in Halifax, and it was just as good as I remembered it. Writing about it now, I think I should like very much to read it again, for I think I have only scratched the surface of what one can say about this often-forgotten play of Albee's. In my opinion it is a classic of modernist drama.
I was rewarded. It is a simple one-act play: two men meet on a park bench, get into a conversation, and it rolls on from there into an exploration of loneliness, miscommunication, alienation, and as so often on the stage (especially in work from this era), the search for meaning amidst modernity and materialism.
It is not quite absurdist; at least, it does not approach the levels of Beckett's Godot or Stoppard's Rosencrantz and Guildenstern in its absurdity, though I was drawn to it because of my love for those other two. So there are similarities, resemblances. But it does have the feel of modernist irony at its best, not to mention modernist simplicity. Two men, a bench, a conversation is all that is needed for a searching examination of deep and important human themes.
I read it again recently after finding a copy in a used bookstore in Halifax, and it was just as good as I remembered it. Writing about it now, I think I should like very much to read it again, for I think I have only scratched the surface of what one can say about this often-forgotten play of Albee's. In my opinion it is a classic of modernist drama.
April 4, 2013
طنزی درباره ی زندگی خانواده ی آمریکایی؛ قصه ی یک زوج و مادر پیرشان، روزی که دو مهمان روزگارشان را بکلی دگرگون می کنند. مامی مسلط و ددی بی حال و اخته، در عوض مادربزرگ، زنی باهوش و زیرک است. خانم بیکر که مامی شیفته ی اوست، با بحثی که مادربزرگ شروع کرده، وارد گفتگو می شود. مامی و ددی آنها را با بحثشان تنها می گذارند. مادربزرگ می داند چرا خانم بیکر دعوت شده و شرح می دهد که مامی و ددی فرزند پسری را سال ها پیش آداپت کرده اند. آنها بچه را به علت حرف نشنیدن، به قول خودشان مجازات می کنند، ولی بچه در واقع به قتل رسیده. وقتی خانم بیکر می رود، مرد جوانی دم در ظاهر می شود که دنبال کار می گردد. وقتی قصه ی زندگی اش را تعریف می کند، مادربزرگ او را "رویای آمریکایی" می نامد. بنظر می رسد این مردجوان، دو قلوی فر��ندی ست که به قتل رسیده، چرا که از شدت رنج و درد "همتا"یش، به صدفی خالی از انسان، تبدیل شده. مادربزرگ وسایلش را بر می دارد و می رود و مرد جوان، به عنوان جانشین فرزند مرده، به مامی و ددی معرفی می شود. آلبی نه تنها رویای آمریکایی را جعلی می داند بلکه ساختار خانواده ی آمریکایی را فاقد ارزش های واقعی، و مردود می شناسد. در مقدمه ی نمایش نامه گفته؛ حمله به ساختار خانواده آمریکایی، مردود دانستن اختگی و بیهودگی و خشونت رایج در زندگی آمریکایی، و مقاومت در مقابل این تحمیل است که همه چیز در این سرزمین زیبا و دوست داشتنی ست.
ر مورد "تیاتر ابزورد" اینجا را بخوانید
http://www.goodreads.com/author_blog_...
ر مورد "تیاتر ابزورد" اینجا را بخوانید
http://www.goodreads.com/author_blog_...
May 3, 2012
I realized I forgot to add this to my shelves when I read it in fall 2011. So I'll just do a brief review now.
These plays were dark, surreal, funny, and kinda metafiction-y. I really enjoyed them.
The American Dream is a story about some fucked up parents and the fucked up relationship they had with their past son. Also, a sassy grandma. Okay, it's mostly about the sassy grandma.
The Zoo Story is about a strange encounter in a park between an average joe and a slightly-less-than-average, possibly insane man that he meets. Surprise ending is pretty awesome.
I'm not much of a play person (why have the past couple literature classes I've taken done SO many plays....ew), but I really liked these.
These plays were dark, surreal, funny, and kinda metafiction-y. I really enjoyed them.
The American Dream is a story about some fucked up parents and the fucked up relationship they had with their past son. Also, a sassy grandma. Okay, it's mostly about the sassy grandma.
The Zoo Story is about a strange encounter in a park between an average joe and a slightly-less-than-average, possibly insane man that he meets. Surprise ending is pretty awesome.
I'm not much of a play person (why have the past couple literature classes I've taken done SO many plays....ew), but I really liked these.
August 16, 2008
I guess i'm into absurdist tales of alienation from modern life? I don't even necessarily catch all the themes or symbols, partly I like it just because it's so funny.
From The American Dream
Daddy (offstage): Mommy! I can't find Grandma's television and I can't find the Pekinese either!
Mommy (offstage): Isn't that funny! And I can't find the water.
Grandma: Heh, heh, heh. I told them everything was hidden.
Mrs Barker: Did you hide the water too?
Grandma (puzzled): No. No, I didn't do *that*.
Daddy (offstage): The truth of the matter is, I can't even find Gramdma's room.
From The American Dream
Daddy (offstage): Mommy! I can't find Grandma's television and I can't find the Pekinese either!
Mommy (offstage): Isn't that funny! And I can't find the water.
Grandma: Heh, heh, heh. I told them everything was hidden.
Mrs Barker: Did you hide the water too?
Grandma (puzzled): No. No, I didn't do *that*.
Daddy (offstage): The truth of the matter is, I can't even find Gramdma's room.
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