The Zoo Story by Edward Albee.

The Zoo Story is the first play by the American playwright Edward Albee. It was written in 1958. The particularity of this text is that it is written in a long one act play, and the only thing that happens is conversation until the very end in which things change.

The play is about a confrontation between two men, Jerry and Peter, in a bench in New York´s Central Park. Jerry, a man in his late thirties, walks into the park and he finds Peter, a man in his early forties, who is reading a newspaper. Jerry starts the conversation by asking Peter about the zoo. At first, Peter does not want to be disturbed, but finally he gets involved in the conversation, telling Jerry things about his life. He says he is a publishing executive with a wife and two daughters, two cats and two parakeets.

Jerry tells Peter that he is completely alone in this world and tells him stories from his life, including where he lives, the things that he gets at home, the story of the landlady´s dog, his parents´ death, the reasons about his frequent visits to the zoo, and some other stories.

After being for a long time listening to Jerry, Peter decides to leave, but Jerry does not let him and begins to tickle Peter. Peter giggles and laughs, and in the end he agrees to listen to Jerry telling what happened at the zoo. At the same time Jerry begins to push Peter off the bench, saying that it is his bench. Peter gets angry and they have a little dispute about the bench. Unexpectedly, Jerry takes out a knife and he drops it near Peter. Peter holds the knife and Jerry makes a manoeuvre to impale himself on the knife.

Jerry is bleeding on the bench and asks Peter “ Could I have planned all this. No...no, I couldn´t have. But I think I did.” Peter is horrified and runs away from scene. Jerry lies there, saying “Oh... my... god”, his dying words.

The story leaves us a message and is that of people being immersed in their own worlds not paying attention to other people or things. The zoo represents the animals that we, as human beings, have inside. These animals are ready to get out if our world is disturbed.

QueenV

MOTHER’S DAY

This is a play about two women that decide to change bodies. This is done because one of them needs help with her self-esteem. She has to learn to respect herself and to make her family to respect her. To make them stop treating her as their maid and to start treating her as wife, in the case of her husband, and as mother, in the case of her children. Because of her weak personality, this is an extremely difficult thing to do for her. That is why, her friend, who happens to be a witch with a very stong personality, convinces her friend to switch bodies. They spend one day in the other’s body and the confident woman finally manage to educate her weak friend’s family.
The story has positive and negative points. Among the positive, we can say that it is very well written, easy to read and to understand, it has simple vocabulary and it is full of funny dialogues. At certain moments, it makes you laugh. As regards the negative, the only thing that can be mentioned is that it is an absurd unreal story.

Sun