Waiting for Godot
A drama resource for years 12–13 based on the play
by Samuel Beckett
by Lisa Sharp of TEAM Solutions and Jacques Strauss, in association
with Auckland Theatre Company and the Ministry of Education
Introduction
This drama teaching and learning resource was developed around the
play Waiting for Godot by Samuel Beckett. It is based on the resource
kit for teachers produced by the Auckland College of Education and the
Auckland Theatre Company (ATC) Education Unit for teachers and
students attending the ATC's production of Waiting for Godot in 2002.
Overall, it gives a comprehensive picture of how a professional drama
production is mounted. Although some of the resource is specific to
this production, overall it provides valuable, and often generic
resources and classroom activities for those who have not seen that
production.
The resource includes:
 background material on the playwright, the play, and relevant
dramatic forms
 interviews with the actors and designers
 related learning activities.
Using this resource
Teachers will find these materials and activities valuable both for
studying this play, and as a comparison and template for studying
other plays and productions, and for learning about performance
practice.
For example, teachers may decide to:
 use the information and activities on theatre of the absurd and
existentialism when studying dramatic form
 adapt the learning activities about exploring roles and status when
teaching practical drama in the classroom
 refer to the interviews and activities on the development of set and
costume design in the context of a class production.
Structure of resource
This resource is divided into five sections, of which the first explains
how this resource relates to The Arts in the New Zealand Curriculum
and NCEA. The other four sections contain resource material and
related learning activities, some of which include work on specific
extracts from the script of the play. Details of these extracts are
provided on the ‘Script extracts’ page.
Options to print all of this material are given on each page, and a
summary list of the script extracts and references is given on the last
page of the resource.
Contents
1. Curriculum links – lists the relevant strands and achievement
objectives from levels 7 and 8 of The Arts in the New Zealand
Curriculum, and the relevant levels 2 and 3 achievement standards
from the National Certificate of Educational Achievement (NCEA).
2. The writer – provides information on Samuel Beckett and his work,
which includes a discussion about the meaning (or lack thereof) of
the play.
Learning activities: Writer
3. World of the play – provides resource material about
existentialism and the development of the theatre of the absurd.
Learning activities: World of the play
4. Actors and their roles – reports interviews with the ATC actors
about their roles in the play, how they developed their characters,
and how they prepare for performance.
Learning activities: Actors and their roles
5. Design – reports interviews with the designers of the set and
costumes for the ATC production.
Learning activities: Design
6. Script extracts
References
Beckett, Samuel (1956, 1985 reprint). Waiting for Godot. London and
Boston: Faber and Faber. Note: The page numbers for script extracts
in this resource refer to this edition.
Blakey, J. (1976). Waiting for Godot - Notes. Toronto: Coles Publishing
Ltd.
Esslin, M. (Ed.), (1965). Samuel Beckett - a collection of critical
essays. New Jersey: Prentice-Hall Publishers. Note: Includes essay by
Gunther Anders.
Fletcher, J. and Spurling, J. (1972). Beckett: a study of his plays.
London: Eyre Methuen Publishers.
Fletcher, B., Fletcher, J., Smith, B. and Bachem, W. (1978). A
student's guide to the plays of Samuel Beckett. London and Boston:
Faber and Faber.
The writer – Samuel Becket
Biography:
Samuel Beckett
Samuel Beckett was born in
Ireland in 1906. He graduated
from Trinity College, Dublin,
with majors in French and
Italian.
In 1928 he was appointed
English lecturer at the famous
Ecole Normale Supérieure in
Paris, where he stayed until
1930. He returned to Ireland
briefly to obtain his Masters
degree, then travelled widely
throughout Europe between
1932 and 1937, before making Paris his permanent home
During World War II, Beckett became actively involved in the French
resistance movement, until the arrest of several friends in 1942
obliged him to distance himself to escape Nazi detection. It was then
that he moved to Vinchy and worked as a farm labourer.
Back in Paris after the war, Beckett soon became part of a group of
avant-garde artists, developing a close friendship with James Joyce.
It was in 1952 that Beckett wrote the work that would bring him
international acclaim, Waiting for Godot.
However, it had an inauspicious beginning. The premiere in Paris in
1953 was in a tiny theatre and with a cast of university students. A
student’s guide to the plays of Samuel Beckett (pp. 38–9) describes
the initial reaction to the play:
The reactions of the Paris audience were mixed but the play immediately gained
distinguished supporters. Jean Anouilh saw the opening of Godot as being as
important as the first production of a Pirandello play in Paris forty years earlier.
Jacques Audiberti wrote in Arts of 16 January 1953 that Godot seemed, 'a perfect work
which deserves triumph,' and Armand Salacrou claimed in the same magazine on 27
February that they had all been waiting 'for this play of our time.'
… At its first London production, the play was treated with bafflement and derision by
the daily paper, but two important reviews in the Sunday Times and The Observer …
started the flow of enthusiasm, speculation, and controversy that has surrounded Godot
ever since. After the publication of the text by Faber in 1956, a review by GS Fraser in
the Times Literary Supplement provoked a correspondence lasting several weeks about
the meaning of the play.
Although best known for his plays, Beckett worked in a variety of
literary forms, including novel, short story, poetry, and film, radio and
television scripts.
That most of Beckett’s important works, including Waiting for Godot,
were originally written in French is surely a testament to his
outstanding literary ability.
Beckett won the Nobel Prize for Literature at the age of 57, and died in
his beloved Paris on 22 December 1989.
Principal plays
Waiting for Godot (in French 1952, in English 1954)
Endgame (in French 1957, in English 1958)
All That Fall (1957)
Krapp’s Last Tape (in English 1959)
Happy Days (in English 1961)
About the play
Waiting for Godot is often described as a play in which nothing
happens, twice. No doubt any audience will have some sympathy for
this assessment. The first and the second half of the play are
remarkably similar and there is little if any dramatic movement.
How is it, then, that this is considered one of the greatest plays of the
twentieth century?
The first question that undoubtedly springs to mind is ‘Who or what is
Godot?’
There are a number of
equally valid answers to
this question but, whoever
or whatever Godot may be,
the play is a fable about
existence. However, as
points out Waiting for
Godot is no ordinary fable.
Essentially one could argue
that Waiting for Godot is
like a fable that lacks a
moral or a lesson. Godot
never arrives and, as such,
there are no sudden
revelations about the
meaning of life, about the
existence of God, or even
about death. The lesson of
Waiting for Godot is that
there are no answers, that
there is no moral.
Godot is the
meaning of life
Godot is
death
Godot is
God
What's for
lunch?
A good way to try and understand what a play may be about is to look
at each of the elements in the play, such as the setting, time,
dialogue, actions, and relationships. Each of these elements often
helps to elucidate the important themes of the work.
Setting
Both acts of the play take place in the same setting – a nondescript
country road with a single tree. Also both acts happen at the same
time – the evening. Even though the second act happens the next day,
there are no changes in the setting, which helps reinforce a sense of
stagnation. Just as there is no change in the setting, there is no
dramatic movement in the play.
Action
There are a number of similarities between the action in the first and
second acts:
 We learn that Estragon had just received a beating.
 There is discussion about Estragon's feet and his boots.
 There is discussion about Estragon's urination.
 The characters consider suicide by hanging.
 The two main characters meet Lucky, Pozzo, and a boy.
 Both end in inaction, after the words, "Yes, let's go."
We can say that Waiting for Godot does not have the linear structure
that is typical of most drama, but instead has a circular structure. Any
movement that does occur brings the characters back to the same
place. For example, we assume that, at the end of the first act,
Vladimir leaves but returns the next day and, as in the first act, Lucky
and Pozzo arrive again in the second. For all their movement, the
characters are effectively stationary.
Dialogue
Much like the action of the play, the dialogue is circular – it is
inconclusive and repetitive. Whatever the characters talk about, no
firm conclusions are ever reached. They often consider the possibility
of leaving but end up deciding that waiting is their only sensible or real
option. J Blakey explains:
The conversations … reach no logical conclusions. Perhaps the best illustration of the
nature of the dialogue in the play is provided by Lucky. In the first act, Lucky, at the
command of his master, gives a long and justly well-known speech. It is in the form of
a quasi-theological address that, at its core, has an apparently serious statement to
make. Eliminating the nonsensical repetitions and comic irrelevancies, Lucky begins
to make something like the following declaration:
Given the existence … of a personal God … outside time … who loves us dearly …
and suffers … with those who … are plunged in torment … it is established beyond all
doubt … that man …
From the point of view of coherence and logic, the speech ends
there. The conclusion is never given; the logical result of the
assumptions (if any) never stated. The ultimate meaning is lost
in a maze of irrelevance and incoherence … Lucky's speech,
which began with a solid core of meaning and degenerates into
mere noises and finally silence, can be said to be typical of much
of the dialogue in Waiting for Godot.
One might argue that the lack of meaning, of sensible dialogue, is a
theme of the play, perhaps the theme of the play. Lucky's failure to
reconcile a personal God with man's suffering and torment is our
spiritual crisis and, though it is by no means a new one, it is the crisis
of our existence.
Relationships
Consider the ‘Happy’ exchange (Script extract 1) between Estragon
and Vladimir.
The relationship between Vladimir and Estragon has no real effect on
their lives. We cannot tell whether either of them benefits from it in
any way and it certainly brings about no real dramatic movement.
At most, one might argue that they keep each other company but, as
neither derive pleasure nor pain from the relationship, it seems to be a
pointless, meaningless one.
Initially it would appear that the relationship between Lucky and Pozzo
is quite different. Grotesque as it may appear to the audience, there is
a clear structure to their relationship and Pozzo, at least, benefits from
it. However, by the second act their relationship is completely
ambiguous and any trace of roles has all but vanished. Ultimately their
relationship brings them as little benefit as that of Vladimir and
Estragon.
Themes
Waiting for Godot is an enormously complex work. There can be no
simple elucidation or explication of the text. One could argue that this
is the case with many important works because, if a simple
explanation of the work's meaning were possible, it would probably
undermine the importance if not the very need for the work itself.
In the case of Waiting for Godot, there is a veritable library of critical
texts written about it. There is no single idea one can point to in the
play – it explores many important themes (such as religion, life,
existence, God) simultaneously because there is a complex interaction
between these ideas that cannot be unravelled simply.
As an example of this, and as an extract that might be considered
generally representative of the play, consider Vladimir and Estragon's
discussion of the Crucifixion (Script extract 2).
There are a number of ideas packed into this scene. What strikes one
first and foremost is the role that chance plays in the lives of the
thieves and, therefore, all people. Only two condemned men were
executed with Jesus and so only those two were given the opportunity
to receive absolution. One of those thieves abused Jesus and as a
result was damned – the other who came to Jesus' defence was saved.
That words uttered during a time of extreme pain and suffering could
have such a significant impact on the lives of two ordinary men is
nothing short of ridiculous – in fact, it is nothing short of absurd.
However this is no isolated instance peculiar to the scriptures. Rather
it serves as an observation that chance – simple circumstance – can
have an enormous and irreversible effect on our lives.
Furthermore, the disagreement in the scriptures about what actually
happened serves to undermine our certainty in what is real. As each
second is lost we can only rely on memory to inform us of what
happened and memory is fallible. Our grip on what is real is tentative
at best.
Clearly a number of complex and related themes are all touched on in
this simple exchange between the main protagonists.
Blakey argues:
The play is a parable of … man's existence… He passes time. He hopes for something
new, though hope is dispirited and lifeless. He simply waits. What it is he awaits, he is
not sure. But he feels compelled to wait.
References
Beckett, Samuel (1956, 1985 reprint). Waiting for Godot. London and
Boston: Faber and Faber. Note: The page numbers for script extracts
in this resource refer to this edition.
Blakely, J. (1976). Waiting for Godot - Notes. Toronto: Coles
Publishing Ltd.
Esslin, M. (Ed.), (1965). Samuel Beckett - a collection of critical
essays. New Jersey: Prentice-Hall Publishers. Note: Includes essay by
Gunther Anders.
Fletcher, J. and Spurling, J. (1972). Beckett: a study of his plays.
London: Eyre Methuen Publishers.
Fletcher, B., Fletcher, J., Smith, B. and Bachem, W. (1978). A
student's guide to the plays of Samuel Beckett. London and Boston:
Faber and Faber.
Learning activities: Writer
Specific learning outcomes
Students will:
 understand key influences on Beckett’s writing
 explore the purposes Beckett had in writing this play
 analyse the use of the universal setting and characters in the
purpose of the play.
These learning outcomes relate to the strand Understanding Drama in
Context (UC) in The Arts in the New Zealand Curriculum.
Activity 1: What’s it all about?
 As a class, discuss the ideas in the play. What is the point of writing
a play where nothing really happens?
 Read the document entitled ‘About the play’.
 Hotseating Becket: In groups, hotseat Samuel Beckett. The
context is a forum after the performance of the play. You will need
people to play the roles of the interviewer (a well-known theatre
critic and expert on theatre of the absurd), Beckett, and members of
the audience. The audience will participate in the discussion by
asking questions and giving opinions of the play. You might like to
choose a range of characters for your audience members, such as:
o school student
o drama teacher
o actor
o grannie on a birthday outing (who thought that the play was
going to be a musical).
 You will each need to prepare questions, answers, and opinions to
use as your lines during the forum. You will need to do some
planning as a group, then rehearse your roles and lines.
 Present your version of the forum to your classmates.
Activity 2: Anti-Godot
Waiting for Godot is intended to be played in a neutral space by
characters representative of ‘everyman’. Your task is to find a context
for the scene called ‘Boots’ (Script extract 3) and to give the roles for
Vladimir and Estragon clearly defined characters.
 To help you do this, record the specific setting in your portfolio and
create the setting with specific objects. You may choose to use a
setting in your environment or to represent a setting on a stage.
 Discuss your characters in detail, deciding on their ages,
occupations, family situations, and motivation. Rehearse your scene,
then perform and video it.
Review the video, and discuss how the text worked when it was placed
in a specific context.
The actors and their roles
Pozzo: Paul Barret
Q: What do you think Waiting for Godot is about, and what do you
hope the audience will take from it?
PB: It is about terror of the unknown – fear that life may be
meaningless. Is there a purpose to our existence? For the characters in
Godot, as in Beckett's Endgame and Happy Days, there are always
rituals and routines to be performed to give them a sense of structure
and meaning. I think most audiences will find that familiar. I love the
characters, and I hope the audience does, for their attempt to fight off
inertia and despair as they contemplate the abyss.
Q: What preparation do you usually do before rehearsals begin? In
particular, how did you prepare for Waiting for Godot?
PB: I don't have any particular routine apart from trying to be at
rehearsals a good 10–15 minutes beforehand so I can change into
rehearsal clothes (when necessary), look over my lines for the
upcoming scenes, and just chat with the other actors. Godot is very
difficult. I have had to spend a lot of time at home on the lines; trying
to find patterns and through-lines. It is often infuriatingly repetitive
and seemingly illogical.
Q: What do you do during the hour before you go on stage?
PB: I like to get dressed and made up as soon as I arrive, so that by
the time I appear on the stage, I am wearing the costume as
comfortably and familiarly as my own clothes. At no later than the half
hour call I will usually spend about 10–15 minutes onstage ‘feeling’ the
space, and doing a vocal and physical warm up.
Lucky: Jon Brazier
Q: What do you think Waiting for Godot is about and what do you hope
the audience will take from it?
JB: Beckett has said that Godot may just as easily been given any
name, like Bert or Peter or whatever. For me, Waiting for Godot is
about the non-existence of a higher being or a God. I can imagine
some audiences find that a very bleak outlook. Alternatively, being
pro-active can provide advancement. I look forward to the reaction
from this production.
Q: What preparation do you usually do before rehearsals begin? In
particular, how did you prepare for Waiting for Godot?
JB: Before rehearsals begin I read the play as often as possible.
Sometimes you are cast in a part months in advance, sometimes just
days, so time is a factor in the amount of preparation that can be
achieved. Ideally, with lots of time, I like to research the time the play
was written and is set. The literature, art, politics, etc. of the times.
For this production, I read heaps of essays on interpretations and
meanings. Some stuff stays with you – you filter out what you think is
appropriate and discard other ideas.
Q: What do you do during the hour before you go on stage?
JB: A physical warm up is important in any pre-performance
preparation and particularly for an actor playing Lucky. My body will be
quite distorted for the time I'm on stage and, unless I'm warm, all
sorts of problems could arise – from cramp to serious injuries. I'll
probably go through Lucky's speech as a vocal warm up along with
vocal dexterity exercises.
Vladimir: Raymond Hawthorne
Q: What do you think Waiting for Godot is about and what do you hope
the audience will take from it?
RH: Many things to do with the human condition. To define it is not
very helpful. However!! It questions man's conditions. Why we are
born. How we live. How we die. The nature of relationships. The need
for human contact. Man's purpose and function in the world. Hope.
Redemption. Resurrection. Fate.
Q: What preparation do you usually do before rehearsals begin? In
particular, how did you prepare for Waiting for Godot?
RH: Study the text. Research the background of the play and the
playwright. Read other works of the playwright. Slowly and
methodically learn and understand the lines, the sub-textual
undertones, the dramatic shape and form of the play (– its arc). All
this in preparation for stepping onto the rehearsal floor to be in a
position to make creative and constructive offerings to both the
director and one's fellow actors.
Q: What do you do during the hour before you go on stage?
RH: It's probably two hours in most cases. Exercise both physical and
vocal, make-up, look through the script of the play to reaffirm or see
new things.
Boy: Jake Howie
Q: What do you make of Waiting for Godot?
JH: To be honest, I was quite confused initially. I had heard about the
play but had not read it until I found out about the audition. But the
more time I spent in rehearsal, both talking to Colin (the director) and
the other actors, and simply watching the other people perform, the
more I understood. I guess in very general terms it asks questions
about life and our existence. In fact, to some degree, it questions
reality, which is quite scary in a way.
Q: What do you do during the hour before you go on stage?
RH: I do some vocal and physical warms ups, but I try not to get too
active otherwise I don’t have enough energy when I get on stage. So
generally I try to sit quietly and think, and let the energy build
gradually.
Q: You’re in year 13 at school now – what is your typical day like at
the moment?
RH: Well, I have exams coming up in a couple of days so I spend most
of the morning and afternoon revising. Because I come on towards the
end of the first half, I only need to get to the theatre about 35 minutes
before the show. This is a great opportunity, so I’ll suffer now and
hope that it will pay off later!
(Note: The actor who played Estragon was not available for
interview.)
Activities: The actors and their roles
Specific learning outcomes
Students will:
 understand and explore the representative roles of Vladimir and
Estragon
 explore the concept of status
 evaluate the performance of the actors in playing their roles.
These learning outcomes relate to the Communication and Interpreting
in Drama (CI) and Understanding Drama in Context (UC) strands in
The Arts in the New Zealand Curriculum.
Activity 6: Exploring the roles
The characters of Vladimir (Did) and Estragon (Gogo) have been
created as representative figures of humanity. All we see is how they
react to the situation in which they find themselves – waiting. We do
not find out anything about their past, occupations, or relationships.
Little happens in the play for the actors to work with, and the dialogue
is sparse and illogical. This is a real challenge for an actor!
 Read a scene from the play. (A recommended scene starts from the
‘His Highness’ line (Script extract 4) on the first page.)
 Work on this scene in pairs. Pay careful attention to the directions in
italics. Work on how you will play the lines by rehearsing them in
the following ways:
o
o
o
o
o
o
without the dialogue
with the dialogue and no action
in gibberish
without using hands for gestures
sitting
moving constantly.
 Rehearse the scene for presentation, recording your decisions about
how you will use voice, movement, gesture, facial expression, and
space to convey ideas about the characters and situation.
Activity 7: Rituals and routines
Existentialist philosophy holds that we avoid the fear and anguish
caused by our inevitable deaths by creating routines, timetables,
schedules, and rituals that make us feel safe and in control of the
world.
 As a group, brainstorm examples from your own experience of
routines and rituals that we create. These may be as simple as a set
order for washing dishes, to how you prepare for an exam, or how
you celebrate Christmas.
 Represent one of these routines by finding three essential
movements that are part of the routine. Experiment until you are
happy with the movements that you have chosen. Rehearse the
movements so that they are big and strong.
 Choose three words to accompany your movement sequence. Put
the words and movement together. You may use repetition.
Structure the sequence however you like.
 Perform your sequence to a partner, and watch their sequence.
Working together, find two moments at which you will make contact
while performing your own routines. These may be moments of
physical contact or moments of eye contact. Begin and finish the
performance of your sequences with a freeze.
 Examine the play for the use of ritual or routine movement.
Activity 8: Exploring status
The characters of Pozzo and Lucky have a clear relationship in terms of
status. Pozzo, as the master, is a high-status role, and Lucky, as the
servant, is a low-status role.
Other roles that indicate status are, for example, boss, worker, leader
follower, principal, teacher, student, parent, child, cool student, geek.
 Think of other examples of roles that have a certain status. Decide
which roles are high status and which are low.
 Create tableaux of pairs of roles using levels and body positions to
show the relative status.
 Play a scene involving two of these roles without dialogue. Indicate
status by using vocal sounds, movements, gesture, and facial
expression.
 Replay the scene with the same roles but with the relative status
reversed.
Design: set and costumes
Set designer: John Parker
Q: Beckett describes the setting of Waiting for Godot as follows: “A
country road. A tree. Evening.” On one hand these seem to be rather
ambiguous instructions, on the other they don't seem to leave much
room for interpretation. How did you go about designing the set for
this production?
JP: I had designed Rosencrantz and Guildenstern are Dead that draws
on Godot. The idea of two people waiting for something somewhere,
and not knowing too much about their predicament, is similar. I took
"a country road" to mean a kind of limbo on the way from somewhere
to somewhere. You have to have a tree because of the biblical
references – tree of life, Calvary, etc. The time of day is very
important also.
My idea [to use a] power line [in the set design] was partly to
emphasise the horizontal, linear nature of the road, but also to suggest
some sort of private communication that the protagonists aren't party
to.
Q: What research do you do before starting a design, and how closely
do you normally work with the director?
JP: We talked of it being post apocalyptical, or post 9/11, and also of
it being set under the Hopetown Bridge to make it relevant to
homeless street people now. The tree went through a time of being
like the twisted steel left at the Twin Towers site at Ground Zero, but
we settled for a nebulous, timeless world of the play, like a no-man'sland.
I have worked with [the director] Colin McColl a lot before, and we
operate on an intuitive, shorthand level.
I looked at the paintings of Magritte and photos of the American
Midwest. I wanted to convey the idea of infinity and of an endless
road. The quality of the clouds changed from photo-realist
technicolour, to painterly blue brushstrokes, back to photo-realist
monochrome.
Costume designer: Elizabeth Whiting
Note: The drawings below are some of Elizabeth’s designs for the ATC
production.
Q: What is the costume designer's role?
EW: Waiting for Godot is an intriguing play. Each [member of the]
creative [team] involved with the piece tends to see a different facet of
the playwright’s original vision, which they bring to the production. I
see the costume designer’s role as facilitating this ambiguity. Nothing
must be overstated, but the characters need the depth of a past
history to make the dilemma of each personality nonverbal.
Q: How do you start the design process?
EW: The text is the starting point for all design. I read
the script several times, noting any costume or
character references. I talk to the director and other
members of the design team about original concepts. At
this meeting I bring visual references I have found,
which suggest ideas I would like to explore. Some ideas
will prove to be triggers for the final concept.
Q: Waiting for Godot has been performed many times
across the world for nearly half a century. How influenced
are you by the design of previous productions? Is the play's
huge theatrical history an inspiration or a burden? With
such plays, do you ever feel the pressure to come up with a
completely new interpretation?
EW: I try to ignore the design of past productions as I feel
design for theatre is very much of the time and place of the
performance. The play's huge theatrical history is an
inspiration as I feel it is my job to excite a new audience
with a fresh look at a classic. I don’t feel it necessary to
force a completely new interpretation on the play, but I feel the design
evolves anew from the fresh combination of creatives working on it.
Q: What kind of research can one do for a play like Waiting for Godot?
EW: The research is very much text based. I need to understand the
references in the text and understand, as much as possible, the intent
of the writer. I do also look at the period in which the play was actually
written, particularly as the writer calls for bowler hats and garments
that are not actually worn today.
Q: Does the casting of the play have an
influence on costume design?
EW: The casting of the play has a huge
influence on the costume design. In fact,
because of the strength of the cast, I am
involving the actors as much as possible in the
process. This means that the design process is
much more organic than usual.
Learning activities: Set and costume
design
Specific learning outcomes
Students will:


explore and analyse how design and costume reflect ideas in the
play
explore how the absurd nature of the play influences design
decisions.
These learning outcomes relate to the Communication and Interpreting
in Drama (CI) and Understanding Drama in Context (UC) strands in
The Arts in the New Zealand Curriculum.
Activity 9: Tramps
The two main characters in the play are tramps.
 Find one or two items of clothing or objects to symbolise a tramp.
 Present these objects to the group, explaining what you think the
objects say about the characters. Are there different tramp
qualities?
 Why do you think Beckett chose tramps as his protagonists?
Activity 10: Thinking about trees
The stage directions state that the set consists of a country road and a
tree.
 What about this set would tell you that this play is a piece of
absurdist theatre? How would the set be different if it were a
naturalistic play, or a Victorian melodrama?
 There are no further directions in the play as to what the set design
should be. What part of the set design for the ATC production was
the designer’s own interpretation of the play? How far do you think
that a designer can go in bringing their own ideas to a production?
 Brainstorm by sketching all of the sorts of trees that you can think
of. Search on the Internet (including clip art collections) and print
out all of the tree designs that you can find. Cut out images of trees
from magazines. Put these up as a collage on the wall of your drama
room.
 In your portfolio, choose which sort of a tree you think would best fit
the play. Justify your choice with reference to the ideas in the play.
Discuss the symbolic meaning of trees. After reading or viewing the
play, discuss how any of these meanings fit with the action and ideas
in the play.
World of the play
Definitions
Existentialism – A (mostly) twentieth century approach that
emphasises the primacy of individual existence over any presumed
natural essence for human beings. Although they differ on many
details, existentialists generally suppose that the fact of my existence
as a human being entails both my unqualified freedom to make of
myself whatever I will, and the awesome responsibility of employing
that freedom appropriately, without being driven by anxiety toward
escaping into the inauthenticity or self deception of any conventional
set of rules for behaviour, even though the entire project may turn out
to be absurd.
Theatre of the absurd – A form of drama that emphasises the
absurdity of human existence by employing disjointed, repetitious, and
meaningless dialogue, purposeless and confusing situations, and plots
that lack realistic or logical development. Something that is absurd is
contrary to reason or beyond the limits of rational thought;
paradoxical, nonsensical or meaningless. According to Camus, Sartre
and other existentialists, absurdity is an inescapable consequence of
any sensitive effort to live in the face of an indifferent reality.
Alienation – The process whereby people become foreign to the world
that they live in. The concept is deeply embedded in all the great
religions, and social and political theories of the civilised epoch –
namely the idea that some time in the past people lived in harmony,
followed by some kind of rupture that left people feeling like foreigners
in the world. However some time in the future this alienation would be
overcome and humanity would again live in harmony with itself and
nature.
Existentialism
The following extract is from Nausea, one of the most famous works of
leading existentialist Jean Paul Sartre (1905-1980).
The Nausea hasn't left me and I don't
believe it will leave me for quite a while;
but I am no longer putting up with it, it is
HELP!
no longer an illness or a passing fit: it is
The world is
me … I had this revelation. It took my
making me
breath away. Never, until these last few
nauseous…
days, had I suspected what it meant to
'exist'. I was like the others, like those who
walk along the seashore in their spring
clothes. I used to say like them: 'The sea is
green; that white speck up there is a seagull', but I didn't feel that it existed, that the
seagull was an 'existing seagull'; usually existence hides itself. It is there, around us, in
us, it is us, you can't say a couple of words without speaking of it, but finally you can't
touch it… We were a heap of existents inconvenienced, embarrassed by ourselves, we
hadn't the slightest reason for being there, any of us, each existent, embarrassed,
vaguely ill at ease, felt superfluous in relation to the others.
And I – weak, languid, obscene, disgusting, tossing about dismal
thoughts – I too was superfluous. ... I dreamed vaguely of killing
myself, to destroy at least one of these superfluous existences.
But my death itself would have been superfluous. Superfluous,
my corpse, my blood on these pebbles, between these plants, in
the depths of this charming park. And the decomposing flesh
would have been superfluous in the earth which would have
received it, and my bones, finally, cleaned, stripped, neat and
clean as teeth, would also have been superfluous; I was
superfluous for all time.
Why do I exist?
Nausea is one of many texts that tackle the tricky problem of our
existence. At some point in our lives most of us ask, "Why do I exist?
What does it all mean? What’s the point after all?"
After thinking about it for a few minutes, we realise these are difficult
questions, which we probably can’t answer, and so we get on with the
very messy, arguably nauseating business of life. But for some
philosophers and writers, this is not good enough. We have to think
about existence and then, after we have thought about it, we have to
think about it some more. Like Jean Paul Sartre, Samuel Beckett was
one of these remarkable people.
Existentialism is the branch of philosophy that deals with the problem
of our existence. Arguably the first existentialist philosopher was a
Dane by the name of Søren Kierkegaard (1813–1855).
Kierkegaard was a deeply religious man. He could not, however,
overlook the fact that parts of Christianity are illogical and that one’s
belief in the bible cannot be based on rational principles. Believing in
God and the bible was a leap of faith. That was precisely Kierkegaard’s
point; because there is no rational basis for God, religion or even our
existence, because a religion riddled with paradoxes was absurd, faith
is of paramount importance.
Thinkers like Sartre and Albert Camus (1913–1960) wrestled with this
question of our absurdity. What do we mean when we say that life is
absurd? Essentially it means we can find no reason or purpose for our
existence. Simply, we are here, we suffer, and finally we die, without
having any idea what purpose it serves. Camus argues that humanity
has to resign itself to the fact that a satisfying rational explanation of
the universe is completely beyond its reach and therefore the world
must be absurd.
Something rather than nothing
If you find this all a bit depressing, you can at least take comfort in the
following question, posed by arguably the greatest philosopher of the
twentieth century, Martin Heidegger (1889-1976): “Why is there
something, rather than nothing?”
The more you think about it, the more you realise that is a surprisingly
optimistic question. You cannot escape the fact that you are here, we
do exist and that, even though there could have been nothing, there is
something.
Theatre of the absurd
The playwrights loosely grouped under the label of ‘absurd’ convey in
their works a sense of bewilderment, anxiety, and wonder in the face
of an inexplicable or absurd universe.
Absurdist plays have an unreal and dreamlike quality, and the
fantasies and nightmares of these plays often portray the inner
emotional conflicts of the characters rather than actual events in the
world. These plays are less concerned with sociology than they are
with metaphysics. By this we mean that the central problem of these
plays is being or existing.
So what does it mean to exist? What is being? These are enormously
complicated questions that have dominated European philosophy for
nearly a hundred years. People like Heidegger have written some of
the most obscure and difficult-to-understand philosophy about these
very questions.
We cannot attempt to look at the multiplicity of answers that have
been given but just being aware that these sorts of questions underpin
Waiting for Godot is a good start to understanding the play.
History of absurdism
So when did this all begin? People like Beckett and Sartre were
certainly not the first to recognise the absurd. Many writers from the
Ancient Greeks to Shakespeare have pondered on the absurd nature of
our existence, and their influence can certainly be seen on the likes of
Beckett.
What differentiates absurdist writers is that the question of existence is
the central theme of the play. It is in the work of people like Antonin
Artaud that we see the emergence of what we commonly call ‘theatre
of the absurd’ today.
Artaud defined the two major purposes of his work as:
 bringing humanity face to face with the apprehension of his own
dark nature
 drawing our attention to the implacable, cruel forces that threaten
us all the time.
Sartre would reject the notion that humanity necessarily has a dark
nature, as he was one of the greatest champions of free will. However,
he and other writers of the absurd would have had a great deal of
sympathy for the notion that humans are a victim of cruel and
implacable forces. That we are at the mercy of forces that are beyond
our control and understanding could be another definition of ‘absurd’.
Though many writers have the central theme of the absurd in
common, each writer’s works are coloured by their particular view of
humanity and the world. The themes that these works usually deal
with are:
 a sense of humanity’s alienation
 the cruelty of existence
 the futility of conventional objectives
 the futility of struggle
 a strong vein of fantasy.
Learning activities:
World of the play
Specific learning outcomes
Students will:
 research and understand existentialist ideas and how they are
represented in the theatre of the absurd
 identify and respond to the absurdist elements in the play.
These learning outcomes relate to the Communication and Interpreting
in Drama (CI) and Understanding Drama in Context (UC) strands in
The Arts in the New Zealand Curriculum.
Activity: 3: Exploring existentialism
 Read the notes on existentialism and the theatre of the absurd.
 Add to your knowledge by researching these topics using your
library and the Internet.
 List key ideas in the following table.
Topic
Facts
Key people:


Philosophers
Playwrights
Events in history
that influenced
existentialists
Key ideas
explored by
existentialists
Important
absurdist plays
Activity 4: Chewing the fat
Explanation
Existentialist philosophers have spent much time considering these
questions:
 What is the point in life?
 Why is there something rather than nothing?
 Why do I exist?
 Head up large sheets of paper with these questions and use crayons
to write down your ideas.
 As a class, listen to each other’s ideas.
 Do you agree with the existentialist philosophers’ view of life?
Activity 5: Verbatim
Discuss the themes in existentialism to which the following quotes
from the play could be linked.
ESTRAGON Nothing to be done.
VLADIMIR I’m beginning to come around to that opinion. All my life
I’ve tried to put it from me saying, Vladimir, be reasonable.
You haven’t yet tried everything. And I resumed the
struggle.
ESTRAGON We came here yesterday.
VLADIMIR Ah, no, there you’re mistaken.
ESTRAGON What did we do yesterday?
VLADIMIR What did we do yesterday?
ESTRAGON Yes.
VLADIMIR Why… Nothing is certain when you’re about.
LUCKY
Given the existence as uttered forth in the public works of
Puncher and Wattmann of a personal god quaquaquaqua
with white beard quaquaquaqua outside time without
extension who from the heights of divine apathia divine
athambia divine aphasia loves us dearly with some
exceptions for reasons unknown but time will tell and
suffers like the divine Miranda with those who for reason
unknown but time will tell are plunged in torment plunged
in fire…
Style Conventions
In every age and every culture, audiences have particular expectations
when they enter the theatre house. People are bound by their culture and a
lifelong indoctrination of values, norms, traditions, beliefs, lifestyles, and
relationships. Audiences know that theatre is theatre, not life, and the
relationship between theatre and culture form theatrical style conventions.
Style conventions have to do with audience expectations determined by
place and time.
The sixth century BC Greek culture was marked, in part, by their value of
heritage. Athenian heritage was tied to citizenship; a man had to have
Athenian parents to be an Athenian citizen. A man of means also valued
his status not only in terms of his past, but also in terms of his future. Pastpresent-future, ancestors-family-legacy, were one. Attending the theatre,
then, where the man witnessed his own heritage was far more meaningful
than we could ever know. It was a reality for that time and that place within
that particular relationship between audience space and performance
space about that particular portrayal in action of the written word. Michel
Saint-Denis explains:
The reality of each country is made of its historical personality which is
constantly being modified.
The theatre takes part in the expression of that reality which is traditional
in the case of old countries or fresh and unconventional in the case of new
countries.
But the theatre is an art; and its form depends upon architecture,
particularly on the relationship between the auditorium and the stage, on
acting, and more than anything else, on the work of the writers.
The theatre's means of expression are forged by the time in which a
play is written and performed, and by the contribution of the past.
In each country the theatre addresses itself to the public of its time
which in due course will become a "period".
Each period has its own style even though we are not conscious of it as
we live.... And this style influences everybody. It has an influence on life
and it is with the unconscious feeling of the style of our own time in our
own country that we turn towards the interpretation of the styles of different
periods in different countries.
It is impossible to separate oneself from one's period without danger of
death. And it is impossible not to be influenced and supported by the
traditions of one's own country.(1)
Due to television and film, audiences today expect to see and hear the
performance with a sharpness never before demanded. They want to see
without barriers and hear with absolute clarity. Audiences expect intimacy,
but, as Saint-Denis points out, they want to be "placed in such a way that
they can be 'reached' from the stage; that they can be struck by the reality
of the performance they are watching."(2) They want an experience. Actors
also strive to reach the patron. When that happens, and it happens very
rarely, it feels like electricity connecting actor to audience.
The theatre architecture, (the shape of the performance space relating to
the shape of the audience space), as well as the technical conditions
determine how directors and designers conceive the staging of a reality for
a modern audience. Modern American audiences of live theatre do not
want to merely experience the sturm und drang they witness and feel
during the day. Resolution is expected. Positive resolution can move from
a feeling of fear to a feeling of security, from a feeling of despair to a
feeling of hope, from a feeling of invisibility to a feeling of worth. BUT
audiences no longer care for mawkish illusion or sentimentality.
Confrontation and passion portrayed by relationships are often the ideals
of what modern audiences seek. Audiences expect to experience
something REAL - according to how THEY define Real. Audiences today
want to connect to their own humanity. They want to connect to the world
that surrounds them, to connect to other people, to connect to the earth without guilt, without judgment - and with a great deal of meaning and
emotional catharsis.
To find that style is, indeed, the challenge of every theatre artist.
What is Atmosphere or Mood?
To create atmosphere or mood means that the audience engages in
emotional and intellectual activity when confronting the relationship
between mise-en-scène and dramatic action at a particular moment in
time.
Let's break this down.
Emotional activity means that the patron feels something.
Intellectual activity means that something is meaningful to the patron,
that the patron understands something.
What the patron is actually seeing and hearing is the mise-en-scène.
Mise-en-scène is the physical (both sight and sound) surroundings and
includes the space relationships defined by the theatre architecture and all
of the design and technical elements. It also includes where the actor is in
the performance space and the actor's physical and vocal expression.
Mise-en-scène is the totality, the whole, of all of these parts.
Dramatic action is what connects the drama to the audience. For lack of
a better way to write this, it is the action of a thread moving outward from
the human soul of the actor portraying a character and connecting to the
human soul of the audience member. When exploring dramatic action, the
theatre artist looks at dialogue and its subtext as a kind of action,
characterization, themes, plot structure, motivation, character objectives,
relationships between characters, movement of the actors, rhythm, pace,
and directing style. Dramatic action as connecting thread is the whole of all
of these parts. Its focal point is the character as portrayed by the actor.
And, finally, because theatre is contextual and active, the atmosphere or
mood changes from moment to moment.
To create atmosphere or mood, the mise-en-scène must closely relate to
the dramatic action. It needs to be so close, that the mise-en-scène
becomes one with dramatic action. When it's right, when all elements of
both mise-en-scène and dramatic action are excellent, they catalyst one
another; and when they mix, a transformation can take place. It is that
transformation that creates an emotional and meaningful experience for
the audience.
What is the Emotional Affect of the Product on the Audience? How Does It
Make the Audience Feel?
To create atmosphere or mood, the theatrical artist/engineer works on two
levels. The first level is to use elements of a product to help create an
emotional experience. Emotional activity means that the patron feels
something. The second level is to connect the product to the rest of the
production, which creates enlightenment or meaning. The audience comes
to the theatre with expectations that the theatrical artist uses to help create
an emotional response. The key to creating emotional response is to
match adjectives to an attitude relating to motif. (See The Unconscious.)
An object creates an emotional response by its combination of line, shape,
form, texture, and color as well as the motifs embodied by that
combination. The shape of a skull often represents death and can create
fear. That is, the patron holds a particular attitude about the shape of a
skull. This is not to say that every object needs to have such a direct
representation. Motifs are also actions, norms, and values. Often, it is the
object's combination of line, shape, form, texture, and color that can create
a subtle emotion as part of the production.
This is a section of a drop, a large, flat, single piece of canvas, painted for
the production of Royal Hunt of the Sun, designed and painted by Debra
Bruch. The brush movement, line, and color are elements designed to help
create a particular emotion, one of beauty, serenity, and a little bit of
chaos. But it does not end there.
This picture of the same drop shows the elements in a relationship
amongst themselves. Although the drop is a flat surface (and the camera is
at an angle), the elements create a three-dimensional quality that draws
the patron to a center point. But it does not end there either.
While this picture does not show the subtlety of color, the whole of the
product psychologically draws the patron into the performance. But the
only way this works, in actuality, is if the audience comes into the theatre
with the attitude that when they are confronted with this drop, the basic
motif of this particular set of painted shapes feels as if it draws and
swallows them into the center. That motif, in this case, is the archetypal
image of a spiral. The feeling, then, is one of loss of control, or fear. I
suppose this is one way to say it's really the patron's fault!
Lighting, sound, and every other engineering product works the same way
according to their own unique set of elements.
The bottom line, though, is to be an artist when creating something. Use
your own sensitivities and place yourself as an audience member. Don't
think about rules; just do it.
In What Way Does the Product Tap into Cultural Myths, Symbols, or
Archetypes?
One of the more effective ways to generate emotion in an audience
member is by tying the product to myths, symbols, or archetypes. In his A
Handbook of Critical Approaches to Literature, Wilfred L. Guerin explains
the mythological and archetypal approaches when analyzing literature. In
this essay, I will offer excerpts of Guerin's writing (1) and then attempt to
relate his writings to theatre.
The relationship between myth, symbol, or archetype and mise-en-scène
has to do with a common response not only to a common experience, but
to the artistic representation of that same common experience. The bottom
line is that on a very substantive and deep level, we all respond to common
experiences because we are all human beings. And when a common
experience is represented in the theatre, we respond similarly to the
experience, even when the common experience is not real but
representation or symbol. In The Masks of God:Primitive Mythology,
Joseph Campbell tells of the phenomenon that newborn chicks will see a
hawk fly overhead and run for cover. The chicks do not respond the same
way when they see other birds. But not only that, a wooden image of a
hawk drawn overhead on a wire will elicit the same response. The wooden
hawk run backwards does not elicit a response. Campbell points out that
the work of art, the wooden hawk, strikes some very deep chord.(2) When
confronting an mythic or archetypal work of art, it strikes some very deep
chord within us. Guerin writes that:
myth is, in the general sense, universal. Furthermore, similar motifs or
themes may be found among many different mythologies, and certain
images that recur in the myths of peoples widely separated in time and
place tend to have a common meaning or, more accurately, tend to elicit
comparable psychological responses and to serve similar cultural
functions. Such motifs and images are called archetypes. Stated simply,
archetypes are universal symbols.
The theatrical artist/engineer does not have to "make" these connections
happen or "make" the patron respond. They simply do. The goal here is to
know what archetypes are and how they work in order to make choices
appropriate for the production. The theatrical artist/engineer would NOT
choose a number of universal symbols in order to make the most
connections, but simply see if the engineering product falls into universal
symbol, and tap into it to help create an experience for the audience.
Guerin offers some examples of archetypes and their symbolic meanings
with which they tend to be associated.
A. Images
1. Water
The mystery of creation; birth-death-resurrection;
purification and redemption; fertility and growth. According to Carl Jung,
water is also the commonest symbol for the unconscious.
a. The sea. The mother of all life; spiritual mystery and infinity;
death and rebirth; timelessness and eternity; the unconscious.
b. Rivers
Death and rebirth (baptism); the flowing of time
into eternity: transitional phases of the life cycle; incarnations of deities.
Not all playwrights include water in their plays, but some do. Synge's
Riders to the Sea does not ask the scene designer to include the sea as a
design element. The sea is not onstage. But the sound of the sea elicits an
image of the sea that is archetypal and appropriate for this production. The
sound of the sea and the sound of a river are two different sounds, and two
different experiences. The sound of a river would not help the production of
Riders to the Sea because people have a common experience with sound
and the response it creates.
A. Images
2. Sun
(Fire and sky are closely related); creative energy; law
in nature; consciousness (thinking, enlightenment, wisdom, spiritual
vision); father principle (moon and earth tend to be associated with female
or mother principle); passage of time and life.
a. Rising sun
Birth; creation; enlightenment
b. Setting sun
Death
Early theatre and outdoor daylight theatre literally connect to this
archetypal image. The artistic representation, of course, has to do with
lighting.
A. Images
3. Colors
a. Red
Blood, sacrifice, violent passion; disorder.
b. Green
growth; sensation; hope; fertility; in negative
context may be associated with death and decay.
c. Blue
Usually highly positive, associated with truth,
religious feeling, security, spiritual purity.
d. Black (Darkness)
Chaos, mystery, the unknown; death;
primal wisdom; the unconscious; evil; melancholy.
e. White
Highly multivalent, signifying, in its positive
aspects, light, purity, innocence, and timelessness; in its negative aspects,
death, terror, the supernatural, and the blinding truth of an inscrutable
cosmic mystery.
Not only painting but light offers color. Of color, though, Guerin is writing
about cultural symbol or motif rather than universal archetypes. For
instance, people of the Egyptian culture respond to black as life, not evil or
darkness, because of their ancient association with the black life-giving soil
when the Nile floods.
A. Images
4. Circle (Sphere) Wholeness, unity
a. Mandala (a geometric figure based upon the squaring of a
circle around a unifying center)
The desire for spiritual unity and
psychic integration. Note that in its classic oriental forms the mandala
features the juxtaposition of the triangle, the square, and the circle with
their numerical equivalents of three, four, and seven.
b. Egg (oval)
The mystery of life and the forces of
generation.
c. Yin-Yang A Chinese symbol representing the union of the
opposite forces of the Yin (female principle, darkness, passivity, the
unconscious) and the Yang (masculine principle, light activity, the
conscious mind).
d. Ouroboros
The ancient symbol of the snake biting its
own tail, signifying the eternal cycle of life, primordial unconsciousness, the
unity of opposing forces.
Mandala
Yin-Yang
Again, Guerin writes of not universal archetypes, but cultural symbols and
motifs. A set designer would consider these motifs.
A. Images
5. Serpent Snake, worm. Symbol of energy and pure force (libido);
evil, corruption, sensuality; destruction; mystery; wisdom; the unconscious.
Joseph Campbell wrote about just how universal the snake is and how
much people of various cultures have blamed the snake.
A. Images
6. Numbers
a. Three
Light; spiritual awareness and unity; the male
principle.
b. Four
Associated with the circle, life cycle, four seasons;
female principle, earth, nature; four elements (earth, air, fire, water)
c. Seven
The most potent of all symbolic numbers signifying the union of three and four, the completion of a cycle, perfect
order.
Numbers are associated with both shape and rhythm, so it is often used in
set design and sound design.
A. Images
7. The Archetypal Woman
Great Mother [Earth Mother] - the
mysteries of life, death, transformation.
a. The Good Mother
Positive aspects of the Earth Mother:
associated with the life principle, birth, warmth, nourishment, protection,
fertility, growth, abundance.
b. The Terrible Mother Including the negative aspects of the
Earth Mother: the witch, sorceress, siren, whore, femme fatale - associated
with sensuality, sexual orgies, fear, danger, darkness, dismemberment,
emasculation, death; the unconscious in its terrifying aspects.
c. The Soul Mate The Sophia figure, Holy Mother, the
princess of "beautiful lady" - incarnation of inspiration and spiritual
fulfillment.
This, of course, connects to the play itself and depiction of characters.
A. Images
8. The Wise Old Man
(Savior, redeemer, guru): personification of
the spiritual principle, representing "knowledge, reflection, insight, wisdom,
cleverness, and intuition on the one hand, and on the other, moral qualities
such as goodwill and readiness to help, which make his 'spiritual' character
sufficiently plain.... Apart from his cleverness, wisdom, and insight, the old
man ... is also notable for his moral qualities; what is more, he even tests
the moral qualities of others and makes gifts dependent on this test.... The
old man always appears when the hero is in a hopeless and desperate
situation from which only profound reflection or a lucky idea ... can
extricate him. But since, for internal and external reasons, the hero cannot
accomplish this himself, the knowledge needed to compensate the
deficiency comes in the form of a personified though, i.e., in the shape of
this sagacious and helpful old man." (C.G. Jung, The Archetypes and the
Collective Unconscious, trans. R.F.C. Hull, 2nd ed. (Princeton, NJ:
Princeton University Press, 1968), pp. 217 ff.).
Again, this is in the realm of the drama.
A. Images
9. Garden Paradise; innocence; unspoiled beauty (especially
feminine); fertility.
Some plays literally call for a garden scene, like My Fair Lady. But turn this
around and think in terms of its meaning when designing and the
connection could happen.
A. Images
10. Tree
"In its most general sense, the symbolism of the tree
denotes life of the cosmos: its consistence, growth, proliferation,
generative and regenerative processes. It stands for inexhaustible life, and
is therefore equivalent to a symbol of immortality." (J.E. Cirlot, A Dictionary
of Symbols, trans. Jack Sage (New York: Philosophical Library, 1962) p.
328.
Modern video and computer games seem to use the tree as a combination
of the Wise Old Man and archetype.
A. Images
11. Desert Spiritual aridity; death; nihilism, hopelessness.
Australian film tends to use the Desert archetype to indicate a change in a
character.
B. Archetypal
Motifs or Patterns
1. Creation Perhaps the most fundamental of all archetypal motifs virtually every mythology is built on some account of how the Cosmos,
Nature, and Man were brought into existence by some supernatural Being
or Beings.
And entire operas, plays, and musical compositions have dealt with this
motif.
B. Archetypal
Motifs or Patterns
2. Immortality
Another fundamental archetype, generally taking
one of two basic narrative forms.
a. Escape from Time.
"Return to Paradise," the state of
perfect, timeless bliss enjoyed by man before his tragic Fall into corruption
and mortality.
b. Mystical submersion into Cyclical Time. The theme of
endless death and regeneration - man achieves a kind of immortality by
submitting to the vast, mysterious rhythm of Nature's eternal cycle,
particularly the cycle of the seasons.
A rather clear way to see a part of Escape from Time is to think about the
movement downward and the movement upward. Because of a universal
feeling that downward is descent of self and upward is ascent of self, we
have movement of downward into hell or the demon ascent from the
depths of hell as well as ascent into heaven and angels descending from
heaven. It would not make sense to us if the movement related to its
opposite meaning. So we have traps in the stage floor and the deus ex
machina in ancient Greek theatre. Mystical submersion into Cyclical Time
reminds me of the ancient Egyptian drama, the Abydos Passion Play.
B. Archetypal
Motifs or Patterns
3. Hero Archetypes
Archetypes of transformation and
redemption.
a. The Quest
The hero (savior, deliverer) undertakes
some long journey during which he must perform impossible tasks, battle
with monsters, solve unanswerable riddles, and overcome insurmountable
obstacles in order to save the kingdom and perhaps marry the princess.
b. Initiation The hero undergoes a series of excruciating
ordeals in passing from ignorance and immaturity to social and spiritual
adulthood, that is, in achieving maturity and becoming a full-fledged
member of his social group. The initiation most commonly consists of three
distinct phases: (1) separation, (2) transformation, and (3) return. Like the
quest, this is a variation of the death-and-rebirth archetype.
c. The Sacrificial Scapegoat The hero, with whom the
welfare of the tribe or nation is identified, must die to atone for the people's
sins and restore the land to fruitfulness.
This connects to plot as well as to character type.
How Does the Product Offer Enlightenment or Meaning?
The theatrical artist/engineer engages in the second level of creating
atmosphere or mood when he or she examines how the engineering
product offers enlightenment or meaning. Intellectual activity means that
something is meaningful to the patron, that the patron understands
something. Basically, the product offers enlightenment or meaning when it
connects to the drama. Connections offer enlightenment or meaning - often
unconscious enlightenment - because connections reveal something about
character, theme, motives, the world of the drama, plot, or anything else
about the drama.
It is not enough for the engineering product to "be like" other design and
engineered elements of a production; neither is it enough only to stimulate
an emotional response in the patron. The best and most effective
engineering products do tie to others but also stand alone to make specific
connections to the drama. Unlike the first level, (to stimulate an emotional
response usually through motif), to offer enlightenment or meaning
requires analysis. Granted, analysis is a different class, but some vital
questions to help make connections can be offered here. No one product
can answer all questions. The theatrical artist/engineer chooses which
question is the best to answer, depending on the product.
Connection to Character.
* What are a character's main psychological and emotional traits?
o How does the product reveal one of those traits?
* What does a character represent?
o How does the product reveal expectations associated with what
the character represents?
* What is the environment in which the character lives?
o How does the product help determine the character's behavior
and/or psychological and emotional traits?
* How does a character change?
o How does the product reveal that change?
Connection to Theme.
* What is the theme, subtheme, or contrasting theme?
o How does the product qualify a theme?
Connection to Plot.
* What is happening, what is being revealed, at a particular moment in
time?
o How does the product portray what is happening?
* What caused something to happen?
o How does the product reveal that cause?
* What will happen in the future?
o How does the product help determine the future?
Connection to the World of the Drama.
* The world of the drama is an unseen force that affects characters their attitudes, beliefs, values, and actions. This unseen force acts like a
psychological umbrella hovering throughout the entire production.
o How does the product reveal the tie between character and
world of the drama?
* What expectations does the world of the drama place on the
character?
o How does the product reveal those expectations?
* How has the world of the drama helped shape a character's
attitudes, beliefs, values, or actions?
o How does the product reveal how the world of the drama affects
the character?
* How has the world of the drama changed themes, characters, or
plot?
o How does the product reveal that change?
How Does the Product Artistically Tie to the Rest of the Production?
To artistically tie to the rest of the production, the theatrical artist/engineer
needs to comply to the director's vision after all collaboration has taken
place. He or she needs to make emotional and intellectual connections
between the engineering product and the performance and also between
the engineering product and the audience. By using the director's vision,
the theatrical artist/engineer creates the engineering product in such a way
that it reveals something about character, theme, plot, or world of the
drama. The theatrical artist/engineer also needs to communicate effectively
with collaborators to match his or her engineering product with theirs.
The song, "It's Hard Out Here for a Pimp" won the Oscar for Achievement
in Music Written for Motion Pictures (Original Song), March 2006. "It's Hard
Out Here for a Pimp", music and Lyrics by Jordan Houston, Cedric
Coleman and Paul Beauregard, is in the film, Hustle and Flow. This song is
an integral part of the screenplay. The main theme in Hustle and Flow is
"Every man has to have a dream. So take charge." Its contrasting theme is
"Ignorance." If you stay ignorant, you stay where you are because you do
not know how to dream or know how to achieve your dream. Technically
and artistically, "It's Hard Out Here for a Pimp" uses all its elements to
generate an emotional response and can stand alone. But it's use in the
film, Hustle and Flow, is what made it outstanding.
Under Performance Conventions/Professional Flair, the song makes the
audience focus onto itself and it becomes a character. As its own
character, the song affects other characters. It also connects to the
character, DJay, and as it unfolds during the performance, DJay changes.
He becomes more educated about his artistic role in relation to the audio
production men and he becomes more accepting of people, specifically the
women he pimps. DJay learns his own worth by working the song. The
song also represents the main theme; it is the window into DJay's dream,
and the song is his way of taking charge. And, finally, the song causes the
plot to unfold causing DJay to change and move forward into his future
with the final help of his counter-character, Nola.
This would not have happened without vision, communication,
connections, and collaboration as well as excellence in knowledge, design
and production. And we have now come full circle. That's it. Thank you for
your attention. You are a wonderful group of people!
THEATRE GLOSSARY
Artistic Choices Options generated and decisions made regarding how a
task might be done; the ways in which a line might be delivered, a
character developed, or an environment designed. Aesthetic Qualities
or experience derived from or based upon the senses and how they are
affected or stimulated.
Aesthetic Criteria Standards used for assessing the effectiveness of fine
art forms. (These may include the quality of the physical perception,
emotional makeup of the participant and the context in which a particular
art form is being experienced.)
Aesthetic Judgment
Assessment and decision making about the adequacy of fine art forms. (It
is relative, never absolute, and depends upon the character of the
experience, needs of the audience, and the environment.)
Aesthetic Response Viewer’s reply, answer, or reaction to works of art
after studying, describing, analyzing, and interpreting the work. Arena
A theater without a proscenium in which the stage is at the center of the
auditorium surrounded by seats. Audience/Performer Configurations
The formal, physical relationship between the audience, the stage, and the
performers – four basic relationships: proscenium; thrust; arena (in-theround), and environmental.
Cause and Effect The plausible arrangement and patterning of related
incidents that drive characters to make choices that move a story forward
to an inevitable conclusion/outcome. An essential structure in realistic
plays.
Character Types Recognizable or conventionalized “persons” seen in
plays across cultures and historical periods – “young lovers,” the “villain,”
or the “trickster” for example.
Climax The moment in a dramatic text or performance in which the
outcome of a given conflict is in greatest doubt; the emotional highpoint; a
key element in realistic plays; the major turning point leading to an
inevitable resolution.
Collaboration A process of working together; a joint effort informed by
shared goals and supportive behaviors.
Collaborative Efforts A group working together to produce a theatrical
event, as opposed to individuals working alone. A cooperative endeavor
required to produce and perform a play. Collaborative Nature
Cooperative endeavor required to produce and perform a play or
improvisation. (This process requires close attention to individual
responsibility, willingness to share ideas and tasks, assistance from
others, and team effort.)
Collaborative Relationships The interaction between two or more people
working together to create a theatrical text or performance. (See
collaborative nature and collaborative theatre processes.) Collaborative
Theatre Processes Agreed upon or shared methods of working together
to generate and refine ideas, to test and implement solutions, and to revise
and polish works for performance; a process enhanced by positive
interpersonal and small group relationships.
Comedy A humorous form concerned with love or human failings, usually
contains a positive ending highlighting reconciliation, a world rebalanced
or the regeneration of love and good will. Conflict Forces or characters
with competing and opposing needs or wants; an essential element in
causal plot structure. Conventions (TV, Film) Commonly accepted
devices, principle, procedures, and forms that structure the presentation of
content and facilitate storytelling (close-up, jump cut, for example).
Conventions of Architecture Commonly accepted devices, principles,
procedures, and forms that influence the design and construction of a
building or structure; identifiable structural and aesthetic elements that
define the form and style of a building. Conventions of Performance
Commonly accepted devices, principles, procedures, forms, and
expectations that define the presentation of a play, improvisation, or written
dramatic text. (These may be associated with an historical period, culture,
or playwright.)
Culture The shared ideas, beliefs, customs, and experiences of a given
people at a given time and place.
Dramatic Action The rendering of character intention, motive, volition; the
element that creates forward movement in a dramatic text; what a
character is trying to do or accomplish in a play or scene. (The action
might be physical or psychological.)
Dramatic Form Categories of drama which represent differing views of
and responses to human experience: tragedy, comedy, melodrama,
farce, and mixed forms.
Dramatic Literature The written text of a play as constructed by a
playwright or team of writers.
Dramatic Structures Various means used to organize a dramatic text or
production; elements of plot, character, language, thought, music, and
spectacle, arranged in differing configurations. (Four conventional plot
structures might include climatic, episodic, situational, and reflexive.
Structures may be identified with specific historical periods, cultures, or
playwrights.)
Dramatic Texts The written text of a play as constructed by a playwright
or team of writers.
Dramatic Works Refers to written dramatic texts and scenarios as well as
improvised and non-language-based performances. Dramaturg A
specialist who works with a theatre company to select a season;
researches cultural/historical/contextual information to aid directors and
playwrights, and support the development of production concepts and
program notes. Environments Synonymous with setting or sets.
However, it may also refer to the total effect of all the visual and aural
elements of a performance. (See world of the play.)
Exposition Information in a dramatic text that provides audiences with
character and story background needed to understand the current/given
situation. (It may appear early or late in a text or be offered throughout the
text.)
Farce An extreme form of comedy, often physical, containing challenges
to authority/the status quo, extreme situations, and highly coincidental
plots.
Formal Elements of Performance Character, environment, language,
action, and the use of time and space to communicate ideas, intentions,
and meaning. The given circumstances of a play or scene – who is
involved, what is happening, where the action occurring, when the action
occurring (chronological time and historical period), how the characters
and actions are revealed, and why do characters make certain choices,
take action.
Form Comedy, tragedy, melodrama, farce, and mixed forms. (See
dramatic forms, genre.)
Genre Categories of drama which represent differing views and
responses to human experience: tragedy, comedy, melodrama, farce,
and mixed forms.
Improvisation The spontaneous or loosely planned use of speech and /or
movement to create characters, settings, and dramatic action.
Improvisational Play The spontaneous inventions of actors used to
explore character, plot, and/or language; a free flowing investigation of
theatrical ideas and actions.
Locomotor Movement Movement through space involving a change in
location; a moving base involving a progressive relocation of the body in
space. (Examples of basic steps are walk, run, leap, hop, and jump.
Skip, slide, and gallop are examples of irregular rhythmic combinations.)
Melodrama Generally refers to plays that present a schematic conflict
between good and evil, with good prevailing.
Mixed Forms Dramatic texts and productions that mix dramatic forms
producing hybrid effects – for example, a tragic comedy or seriocomic
work
Narrative/Non-narrative Dramatic works containing a linear and often
causal progression of events and motives (narrative); dramatic works that
subvert causal structures or use other organizational principles and
approaches (non-narrative). Narrative Structure/Narrative Conventions
Includes (but is not limited to) exposition, inciting incident, rising action(s),
crisis, climax, resolution/denouement—structural elements that introduce,
develop and resolve character conflict(s) in storytelling; the predominate
structure seen in realistic film, television and theatre.
Non-Locomotor Movement Movement that occurs above a stationary
base; movement of the body around its own axis. (Also called axial
movement, it includes bending, stretching, pushing, pulling, bouncing,
swinging, shaking, and twisting.)
Other Literature of the Theatre Includes manuals or literature regarding
dramatic theory, theatre history, or practice in addition to dramatic texts.
Performance Values The manipulation of time, space, movement, the
voice and the body to communicate character, action, and environments.
Playwright The author of a theatrical script intended for performance. (It
may reflect the efforts of a single individual or collaborative group.)
Practices Techniques, traditions, and methodologies of the theatre
applied to writing and performance.
Principles Organizing concepts for creating and understanding theatrical
works.
Presentational A style of performance that celebrates the artifice of
theatre with little or no attempt to disguise lighting or technical effects.
Protagonist The principal character in a dramatic text. The leading
character whose story, actions, and outcome (triumph of defeat) is of
primary concern.
Readers’ Theatre A style of theatre featuring minimal movement and
scenery and relying instead on the vocal expressiveness of the actor, and
the spoken word to create a sense of place, character, and action.
Realism A style of theatre in which characters, dialogue, events, design
elements, and performance techniques conform to or reproduce
observable reality, appear as everyday life. Representational A style of
performance that attempts to hide or reduce the artificial nature of theatre
to create a realistic effect. Resolution Follows the climax in causal plot
construction: emotional intensity drops, loose ends are tied up, and order
is restored.
Skits Short works for performance that may be text or non-text based,
improvised, or scripted.
Staging Conventions/ Theatrical Conventions Elements of theatrical
performance and production accepted by a given community that
facilitates theatrical presentations; traditions and expectations held by
theatre practitioners and audiences of a given historical period.
Storytelling Conventions Elements common to storytelling across cultures
and historical periods, such as establishing the who, what, when, where,
why, and how, and creating a story structure containing a beginning,
middle, and end.
Styles Codified characteristics and expressive choices that influence the
form and content of a dramatic text or production. (It may be associated
with a given playwright, historical period, culture, artistic movement, or
design approach, including realism, naturalism, romanticism, theatricalism,
expressionism, the absurd, and the postmodernism.
Techniques Methodologies that facilitate fluency in the execution of a
given task.
Theatrical Conventions/Staging Conventions Elements of theatrical
performance and production accepted by a given community that
facilitates theatrical presentations.
Traditions and expectations held by theatre practitioners and audiences of
a given historical period.
Theatrical Elements The individual components of theatre: space,
movement, language (speech and text), light, sound, properties, and
scenery.
Theatrical Structures Forms, styles, and controlling elements that shape
dramatic texts or influence an audience’s perception of a given
performance.
Themes Theatrical works that share a commonality based in human
experiences and that show the relationships of individuals to each other
and within social groups. (Examples include the same subject matter,
style, technique, or concepts.)
Thrust A theater stage that extends out into the audience’s part of a
theater and has seats on three sides
Tragedy A dramatic or literary work depicting a protagonist engaged in a
morally significant struggle ending in ruin or utter disappointment
Universal Themes Theatrical works from a variety of cultures that share a
commonality based in human experiences and that show the relationships
of individuals to each other and within social groups. (Examples include
the same subject matter, style, technique, or concepts.)
World of the Play The physical and psychological reality as suggested by
a theatrical script and/or production; the cumulative effect of textual and
production elements that render or suggest the unique reality of a given
play
Naturalism:
Theatre
In theatre, naturalism developed in the late 19th and early 20th centuries. It
refers to theater that tries to create a perfect illusion of reality through
detailed sets, an unpoetic literary style that reflects the way real people
speak, and a style of acting that tries to recreate reality (often by seeking
complete identification with the role, as advocated by Stanislavski).
Naturalism was criticized in the mid-20th century by Bertolt Brecht and
others who argued instead for breaking the illusion of reality in order to
encourage detached consideration of the issues the play raises. Though it
retains a sizable following, most Western theater today follows a seminaturalistic approach, with naturalistic acting but less realistic design
elements (especially set pieces).
Naturalistic performance is often unsuitable when performing other styles
of theatre, particularly older styles. For example, Shakespearean verse
often requires an artificial acting style and scenography; naturalistic actors
try to speak the lines as if they are normal, everyday speech, which often
sounds awkward.
Realism (arts)
Realism in the visual arts and literature is the depiction of subjects as they
appear in everyday life, without embellishment or interpretation. The term
is also used to describe works of art which, in revealing a truth, may
emphasize the ugly or sordid. It represents the opposite of idealism.
Realism also refers to a mid-19th century cultural movement with its roots
in France, where it was a very popular art form around the mid to late
1800’s. It came about with the introduction of photography - a new visual
source that created a desire for people to produce things that look
“objectively real”. Realism was heavily against romanticism, a genre
dominating French literature and artwork in the mid 19th century.
Undistorted by personal bias, Realism believed in the ideology of objective
reality and revolted against exaggerated emotionalism. Truth and accuracy
became the goals of many Realists.
French cultural movement
Realism became prominent as a cultural movement as a reaction to the
idealism of Romanticism in the middle of the 19th century. Often linked to
demands for social and political reform and democracy, realism dominated
the visual arts and literature of France, England and the United States from
around 1840 to 1880, and along with naturalism dominated Brazil's
literature through out this same time. Prominent realists include Balzac,
Stendhal, George Meredith in the United Kingdom, and Eça de Queirós in
Portugal, and probably the best realistic writer ever Machado de Assis on
the literary side and their counterparts in the visual arts include Gustave
Courbet and Jean François Millet.
Surrealism[1] is a movement stating that the liberation of our mind, and
subsequently the liberation of the individual self and society, can be
achieved by exercising the imaginative faculties of the "unconscious mind"
to the attainment of a dream-like state different from, or ultimately ‘truer’
than, everyday reality.
Surrealists believe that this more truthful reality can bring about personal,
cultural, and social revolution, and a life of freedom, poetry, and uninhibited
sexuality. André Breton said that such a revealed truth would be beatific, or
in his own words, "beauty will be convulsive or not at all."
In more mundane terms, the word "surreal" is often used colloquially to
describe unexpected juxtapositions or use of non-sequiturs in art or
dialogue. When the concept of surrealism has been "applied" by
associated groups of individuals, it has often been called a "surrealist
movement," whether cultural (including artistic) or social.
Surrealist thoughts
Surrealist thoughts emerged around 1920, partly as an outgrowth of Dada,
with French writer André Breton as its initial principal theorist. In Breton's
Surrealist Manifesto of 1924 he defines Surrealism as:
Dictionary: Surrealism, n. Pure psychic automatism, by which one
proposes to express, either verbally, in writing, or by any other manner, the
real functioning of thought. Dictation of thought in the absence of all control
exercised by reason, outside of all aesthetic and moral preoccupation.
Encyclopedia: Surrealism. Philosophy. Surrealism is based on the belief in
the superior reality of certain forms of previously neglected associations, in
the omnipotence of dream, in the disinterested play of thought. It tends to
ruin once and for all other psychic mechanisms and to substitute itself for
them in solving all the principal problems of life. Breton would later qualify
the first of these definitions by saying "in the absence of conscious moral
or aesthetic self-censorship," and by his admission, through subsequent
developments, that these definitions were capable of considerable
expansion.
Like those involved in Dada, adherents of Surrealism thought that the
horrors of World War I were the culmination of the Industrial Revolution
and the result of the rational mind. Consequently, irrational thought and
dream-states were seen as the natural antidote to those social problems.
While Dada rejected categories and labels and was rooted in negative
response to the First World War, Surrealism advocates the idea that
ordinary and depictive expressions are vital and important, but that the
sense of their arrangement must be open to the full range of imagination
according to the Hegelian Dialectic. The Marxist dialectic and other
theories, such as Freudian theory, also played a significant role in some of
the development of surrealist theory and, as in the work of such theorists
as Walter Benjamin and Herbert Marcuse, surrealism contributed to the
development of Marxian theory itself.
The Surrealist diagnosis of the "problem" of the realism and capitalist
civilization is a restrictive overlay of false rationality, including social and
academic convention, on the free functioning of the instinctual urges of the
human mind.
Surrealist philosophy connects with the theories of psychiatrist Sigmund
Freud. Freud asserted that unconscious thoughts (the thoughts of which
one is not aware) motivate human behaviour, and he advocated free
association (uncensored expression) and dream analysis to reveal
unconscious thoughts.
It is through the practice of automatism, dream interpretation, and
numerous other surrealist methods that Surrealists believe the wellspring
of imagination and creativity can be accessed. Surrealism also embraces
idiosyncrasy, while rejecting the idea of an underlying madness or
darkness of the mind. Salvador Dalí, who is considered to have been quite
idiosyncratic, explained it as "The only difference between myself and a
madman is I am not MAD!" Surrealists look to so-called "primitive art" as
an example of expression that is not self-censored.
The radical aim of Surrealism is to revolutionize human experience,
including its personal, cultural, social, and political aspects, by freeing
people from what is seen as false rationality, and restrictive customs and
structures. As Breton proclaimed, the true aim of Surrealism is "long live
the social revolution, and it alone!".
To this goal, at various times Surrealists have aligned with communism
and anarchism.
Not all Surrealists subscribe to all facets of the philosophy. Historically
many were not interested in political matters, and this lack of interest
created rifts in the Surrealism movement.
Surrealism in theater
Surrealist theater depicts the subconscious experience, moody tone and
disjointed structure, sometimes imposing a unifying idea. [2]
Artaud rejected Western theatre as a perversion of the original intent of
theatre, which should be a religious and mystical experience. He thought
that rational discourse comprised "falsehood and illusion," which embodied
the worst of discourse. Artaud wanted to create a new form of theater that
would be immediate and directly understandable, linking the unconscious
minds of the actors and the spectator, a sort of “ritual event.” [3] Examples
are The Theatre of the Absurd whose inspiration comes from silent film
and comedy, as well as the tradition of verbal nonsense in early sound film
(Laurel and Hardy, W C Fields, the Marx Brothers). The Theatre of the
Absurd creates a ritual-like, mythological, archetypal, allegorical vision,
closely related to the world of dreams. [4]
Glossary
Visual and Performing Arts: Theatre Content Standards.
acting areas. See center stage, downstage, stage left, stage
right, and upstage.
actor. A person, male or female, who performs a role in a play or an
entertainment.
actor's position. The orientation of the actor to the audience (e.g., full back,
full front, right profile, left profile).
antagonist. A person, a situation, or the protagonist's own inner conflict in
opposition to his or her goals.
articulation. The clear and precise pronunciation of words.
blocking. The planning and working out of the movements of actors on
stage.
body positions. See actor's position.
catharsis. The purification or purgation of the emotions (as pity and fear)
caused in a tragedy.
center stage. The center of the acting area.
character. The personality or part an actor recreates.
characterization. The development and portrayal of a personality through
thought, action, dialogue, costuming, and makeup.
climax. The point of highest dramatic tension or a major turning point in the
action.
cold reading. A reading of a script done by actors who have not previously
reviewed the play.
collaboration. The act of working together in a joint intellectual effort.
commedia dell'arte. A professional form of theatrical improvisation,
developed in Italy in the 1500s, featuring stock characters and
standardized plots.
complication. See rising action.
conflict. The opposition of persons or forces giving rise to dramatic action
in a play.
context. The interrelated conditions in which a play exists or occurs.
conventions of theatre. See theatrical conventions.
costume. Any clothing worn by an actor on stage during a performance.
creative drama. An improvisational, process-centered form of theatre in
which participants are guided by a leader to imagine, enact, and reflect on
human experiences.
crisis. A decisive point in the plot of a play on which the outcome of the
remaining actions depends.
critique. Opinions and comments based on predetermined criteria that may
be used for self-evaluation or the evaluation of the actors or the production
itself.
cue. A signal, either verbal or physical, that indicates something else, such
as a line of dialogue or an entrance, is to happen.
denouement design. The final resolution of the conflict in a plot.
design. The creative process of developing and executing aesthetic or
functional designs in a production, such as costumes, lighting, sets, and
makeup.
dialogue. The conversation between actors on stage.
diction. The pronunciation of words, the choice of words, and the manner
in which a person expresses himself or herself.
directing. The art and technique of bringing the elements of theatre
together to make a play.
director. The person who oversees the entire process of staging a
production.
downstage. The stage area toward the audience.
dramatic play. Children's creation of scenes when they play pretend.
dramatic structure. The special literary style in which plays are written.
dramaturg. A person who provides specific in-depth knowledge and literary
resources to a director, producer, theatre company, or even the audience.
dress rehearsals. The final few rehearsals just prior to opening night in
which the show is run with full technical elements. Full costumes and
makeup are worn.
electronic media. Means of communication characterized by the use of
technology (e.g., radio, television, and the Internet).
Elizabethan theatre. The theatre of England during the reign of Queen
Elizabeth I and often extended to the close of the theatres in 1640.
ensemble. A group of theatrical artists working together to create a
theatrical production.
epic theatre. Theatrical movement of the early 1920s and 1930
characterized by the use of such artificial devices as cartoons, posters, and
film sequences distancing the audience from theatrical illusion and allowing
focus on the play's message.
exposition. Detailed information revealing the facts of a plot.
farce. A comedy with exaggerated characterizations, abundant physical or
visual humor, and, often, an improbable plot.
form. The overall structure or shape of a work that frequently follows an
established design. Forms may refer to a literary type (e.g., narrative form,
short story form, dramatic form) or to patterns of meter, line, and rhymes
(e.g., stanza form, verse form).
formal theatre. Theatre that focuses on public performance in front of an
audience and in which the final production is most important.
genre. Literally, kind or type. In literary and dramatic studies, genre refers
to the main types of literary form, principally tragedy and comedy. The term
can also refer to forms that are more specific to a given historical era, such
as the revenge tragedy, or to more specific subgenres of tragedy and
comedy, such as the comedy of manners.
gesture. An expressive movement of the body or limbs.
Greek theatre. Theatrical events in honor of the god Dionysus that
occurred in Ancient Greece and included play competitions and a chorus of
masked actors.
improvisation. A spontaneous style of theatre in which scenes are created
without advance rehearsing or scripting.
informal theatre. A theatrical performance that focuses on small
presentations, such as one taking place in a classroom setting. Usually, it
is not intended for public view.
Kabuki. One of the traditional forms of Japanese theatre, originating in the
1600s and combining stylized acting, costumes, makeup, and musical
accompaniment.
level. The height of an actor's head actor as determined by his or her body
position (e.g., sitting, lying, standing, or elevated by an artificial means).
makeup. Cosmetics and sometimes hairstyles that an actor wears on stage
to emphasize facial features, historical periods, characterizations, and so
forth.
masks. Coverings worn over the face or part of the face of an actor to
emphasize or neutralize facial characteristics.
melodrama. A dramatic form popular in the 1800s and characterized by an
emphasis on plot and physical action (versus characterization), cliffhanging events, heart-tugging emotional appeals, the celebration of virtue,
and a strongly moralistic tone.
mime. An ancient art form based on pantomime in which conventionalized
gestures are used to express ideas rather than represent actions; also, a
performer of mime.
minstrel show. Musical theatre that usually consisted of performances of
traditional African-American music and dance provided by white actors in
blackface and characterized by exploitive racial stereotypes.
monologue. A long speech by a single character.
motivation. A character's reason for doing or saying things in a play.
musical theatre. A type of entertainment containing music, songs, and,
usually, dance.
Noh. One of the traditional forms of Japanese theatre in which masked
male actors use highly stylized dance and poetry to tell stories.
objective. A character's goal or intention.
pacing. The tempo of an entire theatrical performance.
pageant. Any elaborate street presentation or a series of tableaux across a
stage.
pantomime. Acting without words through facial expression, gesture, and
movement.
pitch. The highness or lowness of the voice.
play. The stage representation of an action or a story; a dramatic
composition.
playwright. A person who writes plays.
production values. The critical elements of a production, such as acting,
direction, lighting, costuming, sets, and makeup.
projection. The placement and delivery of volume, clarity, and distinctness
of voice for communicating to an audience.
props (properties). Items carried on stage by an actor; small items on the
set used by the actors.
proscenium. The enlarged hole cut through a wall to allow the audience to
view the stage. It is also called the proscenium arch. The archway is in a
sense the frame for the action on the stage.
protagonist. The main character of a play and the character with whom the
audience identifies most strongly.
puppetry. Almost anything brought to life by human hands to create a
performance. Types of puppets include rod, hand, and marionette.
reader's theatre. A performance created by actors reading script rather
working from memory.
rehearsal. Practice sessions in which the actors and technicians prepare
for public performance through repetition.
rising action. The middle part of a plot consisting of complications and
discoveries that create conflict.
run-through. A rehearsal moving from start to finish without stopping for
corrections or notes.
script. The written text of a play.
sense memory. Memories of sights, sounds, smells, tastes, and textures. It
is used to help define a character in a certain situation.
stage. The area where actors perform.
stage crew. The backstage technical crew responsible for running the
show. In small theatre companies the same persons build the set and
handle the load-in. Then, during performances, they change the scenery
and handle the curtain.
stage manager. The director's liaison backstage during rehearsal and
performance. The stage manager is responsible for the running of each
performance.
stage left. The left side of the stage from the perspective of an actor facing
the audience.
stage right. The right side of the stage from the perspective of an actor
facing the audience.
stock characters. Established characters, such as young lovers,
neighborhood busybodies, sneaky villains, and overprotective fathers, who
are immediately recognizable by an audience.
style. The distinctive and unique manner in which a writer arranges words
to achieve particular effects. Style essentially combines the idea to be
expressed with the individuality of the author. These arrangements include
individual word choices as well as such matters as the length and structure
of sentences, tone, and use of irony.
subtext. Information that is implied by a character but not stated by a
character in dialogue, including actions and thoughts.
tableau. A silent and motionless depiction of a scene created by actors,
often from a picture. The plural is tableaux.
text. The printed words, including dialogue and the stage directions for a
script.
theatre. The imitation or representation of life performed for other people;
the performance of dramatic literature; drama; the milieu of actors,
technicians, and playwrights; the place where dramatic performances take
place.
theatre of the absurd. Theatrical movement beginning in the 1950s in
which playwrights created works representing the universe as unknowable
and humankind's existence as meaningless.
theatrical conventions. The established techniques, practices, and devices
unique to theatrical productions.
theatrical experiences. Events, activities, and productions associated with
theatre, film/ video, and electronic media.
theatrical games. Noncompetitive games designed to develop acting skills
and popularized by Viola Spolin.
upstage. Used as a noun, the stage area away from the audience; used as
a verb, to steal the focus of a scene.
vocal projection. See projection.
vocal quality. The characteristics of a voice, such as shrill, nasal, raspy,
breathy, booming, and so forth.
volume. The degree of loudness or intensity of a voice.
The Theatre of the Absurd, or Theater of the Absurd (French: "Le Théâtre de
l'Absurde") is a designation for particular plays written by a number of primarily
European playwrights in the late 1940s, 1950s, and 1960s, as well as to the
style of theatre which has evolved from their work. The term was coined by the critic
Martin Esslin, who made it the title of a 1962 book on the subject. Esslin saw the
work of these playwrights as giving artistic articulation to Albert Camus' philosophy
that life is inherently without meaning, and so one must find one's own meaning as
illustrated in his work The Myth of Sisyphus.
Origins
The 'Theatre of the Absurd' is thought to have its origins in Dadaism, nonsense
poetry and avant-garde art of the 1910s – 1920s. Despite its critics, this
genre of theatre achieved popularity when World War II highlighted the essential
precariousness of human life. It is also often known as theatre intended to shock the
audience. Most exemplary is Beckett's Waiting for Godot, a play about two bums
that would have shocked the French audience, to say the least, attending the premiere
performance at the Theatre de Babylone. The expression "Theater of the Absurd" has
been criticized by some writers, and one also finds the expressions "Anti-Theater" and
"New Theater". According to Martin Esslin, the four defining playwrights of the
movement are Eugène Ionesco, Samuel Beckett, Jean Genet, and
Arthur Adamov, although each of these writers has entirely unique preoccupations
and techniques that go beyond the term "absurd". Other writers often associated with this
group include Tom Stoppard, Friedrich Dürrenmatt, Fernando
Arrabal, Harold Pinter, Edward Albee and Jean Tardieu. Playwrights
who served as an inspiration to the movement include Alfred Jarry, Luigi
Pirandello, Stanislaw Ignacy Witkiewicz, Guillaume Apollinaire,
the surrealists and many more. The "Absurd" or "New Theater" movement was, in its
origin, a distinctly Paris-based (and Rive Gauche) avant-garde phenomenon tied to
extremely small theaters in the Quartier Latin; the movement only gained
international prominence over time.
Essential traits
In practice, The Theatre of the Absurd departs from realistic characters, situations and all
of the associated theatrical conventions. Time, place and identity are ambiguous and
fluid, and even basic causality frequently breaks down. Meaningless plots, repetitive or
nonsensical dialogue and dramatic non-sequiturs are often used to create dreamlike, or even nightmare-like moods. There is a fine line, however, between the careful and
artful use of chaos and non-realistic elements and true, meaningless chaos. While many
of the plays described by this title seem to be quite random and meaningless on the
surface, an underlying structure and meaning is usually found in the midst of the chaos.
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Human condition is meaningless, absurd, illogical (Jacobus 1804). Humans are
lost and floating in an incomprehensible universe and they abandon rational
devices and discursive thought because these approaches are inadequate (Watt,
Richardson 1154).
Language: Words often appear to have lost their denotative function, thus creating
misunderstanding among the characters. Instead, language frequently gains a
certain phonetic, rhythmical, almost musical quality, opening up a wide range of
toying with it, sometimes for the mere purpose of whiling away the time of
waiting for something that is not to come (as in Beckett's Waiting for Godot).
Characteristics: no plot, minimal staging, babbling; abstract setting, arbitrary
illogical action (Worthen 1639). That which is devoid of purpose. “It is
sometimes said to express the ‘human condition’ in a basic or ‘existential’ way”
(Worthen 1639).
Pirandello was one of the first experimentalists. He wanted to bring down the
fourth wall that was created by Realism and playwrights like Ibsen and Strindberg
(Jacobus 920).
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Absurdism is “the inevitable devaluation of ideals, purity, and purpose” (Esslin
24).
The language and poetry of Absurdist Theater emerges from concrete and
objectified images of the stage (26).
Absurdist Dramas asks its audience to “draw his own conclusions, make his own
errors” (20).
Though Theatre of the Absurd may be seen as nonsense, they have Most of
thesomething to say and can be understood” (Esslin 21). bewilderment absurdist
drama initially created was because critics and reviewers were used to more
conventional drama: realism.
Esslin makes a distinction between the dictionary definition of absurd (“out of
harmony” in the musical sense) and Drama’s understanding of the Absurd:
“Absurd is that which is devoid of purpose. . . . Cut off from his religious,
metaphysical, and transcendental roots, man is lost; all his actions become
senseless, absurd, useless” (qut. Ionesco, Esslin 23).
“Pirandello was caught between his own sense of himself and the role he was
given in this domestic tragedy” (Worthen 702).
Six Characters, and other Pirandello plays, use “Metatheater—roleplaying, playswithin-plays, and a flexible sense of the limits of stage and illusion—to examine a
highly theatricalized vision of identity” (702).
ZOO STORY – Edward Albee Questions
1 Albee has been described as “a leading figure of the new drama of the absurd that
mingles the realistic with fantasy to present a savagely satirical attack on spiritual
sterility, blandness, conformity, and hypocrisy, and to summon up with deep feeling
the tragedy of alienation.” What aspects of this description apply to Zoo Story?
2 How does the blend of realism and symbolism in this play compare with The Glass
Menagerie and “The School”? Look carefully for symbolic details throughout the
play.
3 What do Jerry’s comments about his family background, and his dead parents in
particular, reveal about his character?
4 What is the significance of the title of this play? Does the play suggest that human
beings are like caged and isolated animals in any way? Can Peter be said to live in a
metaphorical zoo?
5 Why is Jerry associated with a dog and Peter with a cat? What similarities or
overlapping is there in the animal images associated with both of them?
6 What mythological and Biblical parallels are suggested by Jerry’s language as he
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9
10
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describes his life (and by Peter’s name)? Several critics have viewed Jerry as a
Christ figure, a Christ parody, and a Jeremiah who denounces false gods. What do
you think of these interpretations?
What differences between Jerry and Peter are emphasized by their living conditions,
their language, and their methods of telling stories?
What is the significance of the props associated with each character: Harry’s knife
and Peter’s book?
What are the parodies of sexuality associated with Jerry and how do they compare
with the sexual and domestic realities of Peter’s life?
Can Jerry and Peter be seen as two sides of the same coin, representing different
manifestations of sterility in modern society?
How does the play suggest that animalistic violence lies beneath a thin veneer of
civilization in modern society?
What is your reaction to the end of the play? Does Peter release Jerry from his hell at
the end?
Edward Albee's "The Zoo Story" explores the balance of human interaction
By Daisy Yuhas
The possibility of making a real, human connection with someone else is at the heart of
"The Zoo Story," a play by Edward Albee being performed in the Frear Ensemble
Theater this weekend. The play will be performed on Friday, April 28, at 7 pm, Saturday,
April 29 at 7 and 10 pm, and Sunday, April 30, at 7 and 10 pm. Seating is limited so it is
recommended that those interested arrive early.
Directed by Ross Manson and starring Neal Dandade '06 and Toby David '06, the play
tells the story of two men who meet in the park in New York City. Though the two are
strangers, they quickly come to know one another as Jerry, played by Dandade, first tries
to glean facts about Peter, played by David, then turns to telling tales of his own life.
Just as Scheherazade used stories to prolong her contact with the king and cling to life,
Dundade's Jerry is a storyteller, who carves into the play with his own experiences, trying
desperately to communicate with another human being and somehow touch a separate life
with his own. The stories mount as he endeavors to explain just what brought him to walk
to the zoo that day, and what conclusions he has drawn from the matter.
The play is moving and rich in pathos, powerfully performed and daring in its intentions.
Costumes, by Jen Roth '07, and lighting,
by Stephanie Duncan '08 and Mikalena Wymer '08, set the mood and the Frear Stage
itself, managed by Sarah Stauffer '09, with
green grass flooring and two large park benches, has once again been transformed. The
audience has been divided and arranged
to face one another, just as the park benches do, suggesting both confrontation and the
inevitable possibility of momentary
eye contact, a fitting touch for a play deeply concerned with communication.
'The Zoo Story': An Albee masterpiece, expertly acted
By Candace Chaney Contributing Theatre Critic
What if everyday chance encounters turned into more? What if, instead of saying ”fine“
when someone asked how you are, you said, ”Actually, I'm horrible and here's why ... .“
The little white lies of politeness are what society depends on for everyday order.
Manners, we call it. But in Edward Albee's The Zoo Story, manners are forsaken for
blatant and often uncomfortable truths in a play that highlights the tense and dangerous
repercussions of absolute honesty.
Natasha's Bistro and its Balagula Theatre are playing host to Shoestring Productions, a
Louisville theater company, in several performances of Albee's groundbreaking work.
Directed by Kathi E.B. Ellis, this visiting production of The Zoo Story provides a
compelling, funny, thought-provoking, and ultimately shocking examination of an
afternoon encounter between two strangers in New York's Central Park. Peter, a welldressed, well-mannered publishing executive, is enjoying a book on his favorite park
bench when a stranger abruptly starts talking to him. Jerry, the stranger, is less puttogether. His clothes are sloppy and he has the air of someone who might, just might, be a
vagrant. Peter is uncomfortable with Jerry's odd behavior and frank, invasive questions,
but his sense of decorum outweighs his personal discomfort.
It clearly crosses Peter's mind, and the audience's, that Jerry might be crazy. But the more
Jerry talks about his own life, the more he shares deep and gritty emotional observations,
we sense that Jerry might be smarter than us, that he may be a kind of park bench
preacher, some kind of wiseman caught in a broken life. That is probably why Peter
consents to talking to him for as long as he does. When Jerry says thinks like, ”Kindness
with cruelty is the teaching emotion, and what we gain is loss,“ he seems almost
prophetic.
Louisville actors Doug Sumey and Lee Look give powerful performances as Peter and
Jerry, respectively. Sumey skillfully portrays a man whose ability for emotional
containment weakens and weakens as Jerry learns how to push Peter's buttons. Look's
Jerry is charming, likeable, but fierce and edgy. The two share palpable chemistry as the
park-bench exchange escalates to increasingly personal terrain.
In the end, we learn that this chance encounter is not so chance. It's not so much fate as
intention. Jerry chose to talk to Peter, to addle and even enrage him, for a very specific
reason, one we do not see coming until the play's dark twist in its final seconds. When the
purpose of their encounter is revealed, suddenly Jerry's previous dialogue takes on a
much fuller, much darker meaning. The impact is shocking, sad and beautiful at the same
time.
Clocking in at under an hour, this swift-moving play packs a mighty punch.
The Zoo Story | Introduction
When Edward Albee wrote The Zoo Story in 1958, it was the first
play that he wrote as an adult and only the second play that he
wrote in his lifetime. His only other play was a sex farce that he
wrote at the age of twelve. After being passed from friend to
friend, The Zoo Story traveled from New York to Florence, Italy,
to Zurich, Switzerland, to Frankfurt, Germany and was finally
produced for the first time in Berlin, Germany. It opened on
September 28, 1959, at the Schiller Theatre Werkstatt. After
much critical praise in Germany, it was less than three months
before The Zoo Story finally opened in New York. It debuted offBroadway at the Provincetown Playhouse on January 14, 1960,
and instantly had a strong impact on critics and audiences alike.
The vast majority of the reviews were positive and many hoped
for a revitalized theatre because of it. A few critics, however,
dismissed the play because of its absurd content and seemed
confused as to what Albee was trying to say with it.
The story, in simplest terms, is about how a man who is
consumed with loneliness starts up a conversation with another
man on a bench in Central Park and eventually forces him to
participate in an act of violence. According to Matthew Roudane,
who quoted a 1974 interview with Albee in his Understanding
Edward Albee, the playwright maintained that he got the idea for
The Zoo Story while working for Western Union: "I was always
delivering telegrams to people in rooming houses. I met [the
models for] all those people in the play in rooming houses. Jerry,
the hero, is still around." Combining both realistic and absurd
elements, Albee has constructed a short but multi-leveled play
dealing with issues of human isolation, loneliness, class
differences, and the dangers of inaction within American society.
He focuses on the need for people to acknowledge and
understand each other's differences. After garnering its initial
critical praise, The Zoo Story went on to win the Village Voice
Obie Award for best play and ran for a total of 582 performances.
The Zoo Story continues to be a favorite with university and
small theatre companies and persists in shocking and profoundly
affecting its audiences.
The Zoo Story | Author Biography
Edward Albee was born on March 12, 1928, in Washington, DC,
where he was given the name Edward Franklin Albee III by Reed
and Francis Albee, who adopted him from his natural birth
parents. Reed and Francis Albee were the heirs to the multimillion-dollar fortune of American theater manager Edward
Franklin Albee I. Albee attended several private and military
schools, and during this education he began writing poetry and
attending the theatre. Albee was twelve when he attempted to
write his first play, a three-act sex farce; he soon turned back to
poetry and even attempted to write novels as a teen. He studied
at Trinity College in Connecticut from 1946 until 1947 and then
decided to take the trust fund his grandmother had left him and
move to New York City's Greenwich Village. Albee was able to
live off of this fund by supplementing it with small odd jobs, thus
allowing him to focus on his writing career.
While in his twenties, Edward Albee had some limited success as
an author of poetry and fiction, but he was still unable to make a
living off of his writing and, therefore, continued to work small
jobs to supplement his income, including working as a messenger
for Western Union from 1955 until 1958. It was while working as
a telegram messenger that Albee came up with the idea for The
Zoo Story, when he encountered real life counterparts for Jerry
and the other residents of the boarding house that he describes
in the play.
At the age of thirty, Albee quit his job at Western Union and
wrote The Zoo Story (1958), his first significant play. Inspired by
the works of Samuel Beckett, Bertolt Brecht, Jean Genet, and
Tennessee Williams, Albee wrote The Zoo Story in three short
weeks. After being passed around from colleague to colleague, it
was finally produced at the Schiller Theater Werstatt in Berlin,
Germany, opening there on September 28, 1959. The Zoo Story
won the Berlin Festival Award in 1959 and eventually found its
way back to the U.S., where it opened off-Broadway at the
Provincetown Playhouse in New York on January 14, 1960. While
there, The Zoo Story shared the bill with Krapp's Last Tape,
which was written by Samuel Beckett, one of Albee's greatest
influences.
The Zoo Story went on to win the Village Voice Obie Award for
best play in 1960, but it was not until after four more one-act
plays that Albee wrote his most controversial and critically
acclaimed play. Who's Afraid of Virginia Woolf? opened on
Broadway at the Billy Rose Theatre on October 13, 1962, and
went on to win the Tony Award for best play. Followed by
controversy wherever it played, Who's Afraid of Virginia Woolf?
forced critics and audiences to react, both positively and
negatively, and assured Albee's place in American theatre
history. Admired and detested for its bleakness and negativity,
Who's Afraid of Virginia Woolf? was a critical and financial
success and was eventually made into a film with Elizabeth
Taylor and Richard Burton in 1966.
Edward Albee went on to win the Pulitzer Prize three times, for A
Delicate Balance (1966), for Seascape (1975), and for Three Tall
Women (1994). Albee continues to be one of the most acclaimed
and controversial playwrights in the United States, and he has
continued to use the commercial success of his more famous
works in order to pursue theatrical experimentation, despite
sometimes scathing reviews and commercial failure. Mingling
absurdity with acute realism in his early works off-Broadway
during the 1960s, Albee has paved the way and inspired such
contemporary playwrights as David Mamet and Sam Shepard,
while continuing to experiment with and challenge theatrical
form.
The Zoo Story | Summary
Edward Albee's The Zoo Story is a long one-act play in which
"nothing happens" except conversation—until the violent ending.
Shorn of much of the richness of Albee's utterly arresting
language, and his astonishing nuances of psychological attack
and retreat, the play can be described as follows:
A man named Peter, a complacent publishing executive of middle
age and upper-middle income, is comfortably reading a book on
his favorite bench in New York's Central Park on a sunny
afternoon. Along comes Jerry, an aggressive, seedy, erratic
loner. Jerry announces that he has been to the (Central Park)
Zoo and eventually gets Peter, who clearly would rather be left
alone, to put down his book and actually enter into a
conversation. With pushy questions, Jerry learns that Peter lives
on the fashionable East Side of the Park (they are near Fifth
Avenue and 74th Street), that the firm for which he works
publishes textbooks, and that his household is femaledominated: one wife, two daughters, two cats, and two
parakeets. Jerry easily guesses that Peter would rather have a
dog than cats and that he wishes he had a son. More
perceptively, Jerry guesses that there will be no more children,
and that that decision was made by Peter's wife. Ruefully, Peter
admits the truth of these guesses.
The subjects of the Zoo and Jerry's visit to it come up several
times, at one of which Jerry says mysteriously, "You'll read about
it in the papers tomorrow, if you don't see it on your TV tonight.''
The play never completely clarifies this remark. Some critics
think, because of statements Jerry makes about the animals, that
he may have released some from their cages, while others think
Jerry is talking about a death which has not yet happened, which
might be headlined "Murder Near Central Park Zoo.''
The focus now turns to Jerry, who tells Peter that he walked all
the way up Fifth Avenue from Washington Square to the Zoo, a
trip of over fifty blocks. Adding Washington Square to Jerry's
appearance and behavior, Peter assumes that Jerry lives in
Greenwich Village, which in 1960, the year the play was first
produced, was the principal "bohemian" section of Manhattan.
Jerry says no, that he lives across the Park on the (then slumridden) West Side, and took the subway downtown for the
express purpose of walking back up Fifth Avenue. No reason is
given for this, but Jerry "explains'' it in one of the most quoted
sentences of the play: "sometimes a person has to go a very long
distance out of his way to come back a short distance correctly."
It is possible that Jerry saw his trip up Fifth Avenue, which
gradually improves from the addicts and prostitutes of
Washington Square to such bastions of prosperity as the famous
Plaza Hotel, as a symbolic journey through the American class
system to the source of his problem—not millionaire's row but
the affluent, indifferent upper middle class.
Without any prompting from Peter, Jerry describes his living
arrangements: a tiny room in a rooming house, with a very short
list of possessions; some clothes, a can opener and hotplate,
eating utensils, empty picture frames, a few books, a deck of
pornographic playing cards, an old typewriter, and a box with
many unanswered "Please!'' letters and "When?" letters. Jerry's
building is like something out of Dante's Inferno, with several
different kinds of suffering on each floor, including a woman Jerry
has never seen who cries all the time, a black "queen" who
plucks his eyebrows "with Buddhist concentration" and hogs the
bathroom, and a disgusting landlady whom Jerry describes
vividly. Jerry also reveals the loss of both parents—his mother to
whoring and drinking and his father to drinking and an encounter
with "a somewhat moving city omnibus"—events that seem to
have had little emotional effect on him. Jerry's love life is also
discussed: an early and very intense homosexual infatuation and,
at present, one-night stands with nameless women whom he
never sees again.
It is clear in this section of the play that Jerry is trying to make
Peter understand something about loneliness and suffering—not
so much Jerry's own pain, which he treats cynically, but the pain
of the people in his building, the Zoo animals isolated in their
cages, and more generally the societal dregs that Peter is more
comfortable not having to think about. Peter is repelled by Jerry's
information but not moved except to exasperation and
discomfort. Desperate to communicate with Peter or at least to
teach him something about the difficulties of communication,
Jerry comes up with "The Story of Jerry and the Dog." It is a
long, disgusting, and eventually pathetic tale of his attempt to
find some kind of communication, or at least relationship, with
the vile landlady's vile dog (the hound who guards the entrance
to Jerry's particular hell). Jerry fails to reach the dog, though he
goes from trying to kill it with kindness to just plain trying to kill
it; the two finally achieve mutual indifference, and Jerry gains
free entry to the building without being attacked, "if that much
further loss can be said to be gain."
Jerry also fails to reach Peter, who is bewildered but not moved
by this story and who prepares to leave his now-disturbed
sanctuary for his comfortable home. Desperately grasping at one
last chance, Jerry tickles Peter, then punches him on the arm and
pushes him to the ground. He challenges Peter to fight for "his"
bench, but Peter will not. Jerry produces a knife, which he throws
on the ground between them. He grabs Peter, slapping and
taunting him ("fight for your manhood, you pathetic little
vegetable") until Peter, at last enraged, picks up the knife. Even
then, as Albee points out, "Peter holds the knife with a firm arm,
but far in front of him, not to attack, but to defend." Jerry says,
"So be it," and "With a rush he charges Peter and impales himself
on the knife."
Peter is paralyzed. Jerry thanks Peter and hurries him away for
his own safety, reminding Peter to take his book from "your
bench ... my bench, rather." Peter runs off, crying "Oh, my God!"
Jerry echoes these words with "a combination of scornful mimicry
and supplication," and dies.
Portions of Albee's dialogue and stage directions have been
included in this summary in an attempt to indicate the huge
importance of Albee's incisive use of language and psychology in
the play. The play resides, in fact, not in the physical actions of
the plot (except the killing at the end) but in the acuteness (not
to mention the shocking quality) of the language, in the range of
kinds of aggression shown by Jerry—from insult and assault to
the subtlest of insinuations—and even in the symbolism which
becomes more apparent near the end of the action.
The Zoo Story | Characters
Jerry
Jerry, the antagonist in The Zoo Story, confronts Peter while he
is reading a book in Central Park and coerces him into partaking
in an act of violence. Albee gives the following description of
Jerry: "A man in his late thirties, not poorly dressed, but
carelessly. What was once a trim and lightly muscled body has
begun to go to fat; and while he is no longer handsome, it is
evident that he once was.'' In contrast to Peter, Jerry lives in a
four-story brownstone roominghouse on the Upper West Side of
Manhattan, between Columbus Avenue and Central Park West.
During the 1950s, this was a much poorer neighborhood than the
East 70s, where Peter lives. Jerry is single and lives in one small
room that is actually half a room separated from the other half
by beaverboard.
Throughout the course of the play, Jerry tells Peter only what he
wants Peter to know, and does not like to be asked questions or
be judged. He makes a point of telling Peter very personal details
of his life, like how his parents both died when he was a child and
how he was a homosexual for a week and a half when he was
fifteen and now only sees prostitutes. Peter finds Jerry's stories
disturbing but fascinating and it is only when they get very
strange that Peter begins to question Jerry's intentions. Jerry
uses all of his resources, including his storytelling ability, his
humor, and finally his violent aggression, to make-sure that
Peter does not leave until he gets what he wants from him. In
the end, Jerry resorts to physically attacking Peter so that Peter
has to defend himself. Jerry sets it up so that he is able to impale
himself on his own knife, while Peter holds it out in self-defense.
In the end, Jerry uses Peter to get what he has planned to get
from him all along.
Peter
Peter is the protagonist in The Zoo Story who after coming to
Central Park to spend some time alone on his favorite bench to
read a book on a Sunday afternoon, has his life forever changed
by Jerry, who confronts him. Albee describes Peter as: "A man in
his early forties, neither fat nor gaunt, neither handsome nor
homely." Peter lives on Seventy-fourth Street between Lexington
and Third Avenues, which was a rather wealthy neighborhood in
Manhattan during the late 1950s. He is married, has two
daughters, cats, and two parakeets. He holds an executive
position at a small publishing house that publishes textbooks.
These details about Peter's life all come out of the dialogue that
he has with Jerry, and although at first they seem to be trivial
facts, they serve an important function in establishing the two
different worlds in which Peter and Jerry live.
When Jerry first confronts Peter at the beginning of the play,
Peter is reluctant to have a conversation with Jerry and is
obviously annoyed by him. However, Jerry's manner and the way
he talks intrigues Peter and it is this intrigue that allows Jerry to
pull him into his world. The beginning of the conversation seems
to be controlled more by Peter, because Jerry must use different
tactics to keep Peter interested and to recover when he offends
him. However, it is Jerry's vivid descriptions of his life that
mesmerize Peter and allow Jerry to gain control over the
situation. By the end of the play, Peter has unwillingly allowed
Jerry to use him as a pawn in Jerry's plan to end his own life. In
the end, Jerry leaves Peter with an experience that will haunt him
for the rest of his life. Although he is more educated and has had
more social and economic advantages than Jerry, Peter is the
weaker and more naïve of the two men.
The Zoo Story | Themes
The Zoo Story by Edward Albee details what happens when one
character enters the life of another character and quickly changes
it forever. In the play, Jerry confronts Peter while he sits quietly
reading on a bench in Central Park; through a quick series of
events, Jerry forces Peter into helping him kill himself. Layered
throughout this short one-act play are three overriding themes:
absurdity versus reality, alienation and loneliness, and wealth
and poverty.
Absurdity and Reality
The first theme of The Zoo Story has to do with absurdity and
reality. During the beginning of the play, Jerry initiates the
conversation with Peter and carefully chooses topics with which
Peter will be familiar, such as family and career. However, Jerry
soon begins to insert strange comments and questions into what
is on the surface a conversation between two strangers trying to
get to know each other. This is apparent during the moment
when Jerry, assuming that Peter does not like his daughters'
cats, asks if Peter's birds are diseased. Peter says that he does
not believe so and Jerry replies:
"That's too bad. If they did you could set them loose in the house
and the cats could eat them and die, maybe.'' These
unreasonable and ridiculous, or absurd, moments in the play
begin to shake Peter's sense of reality and place. However, Jerry
is quick to counter these moments with genuinely pleasant,
benign comments and interesting stories to keep Peter engaged.
Throughout the play, as Jerry's stories continue, he is careful to
control the conversation and manipulate Peter. By the end of the
play, Jerry has managed to alter Peter's perception of reality to
such an extent that Peter becomes involved in a physical fight
over what he believes to be "his" park bench and in an act of
self-defense helps Jerry kill himself. The reality of what has
transpired then strikes Peter full force, and he runs off howling
"Oh my God!"
Alienation and Loneliness
The theme of alienation and loneliness, which in The Zoo Story
is presented as being representative of the human condition as a
whole, is largely what motivates Jerry to do the things that he
does. From the beginning of the play, when Jerry enters Peter's
world, it is obvious that Jerry lacks simple social skills. Jerry's
first words are not, "Hello, may I sit down," but rather: "I've
been to the zoo. I said, I've been to the zoo. MISTER, I'VE BEEN
TO THE ZOO!" Through Jerry's stories, Peter learns that Jerry lost
his parents at the age of ten and then went to live with his aunt,
who died on the afternoon of his high school graduation. Jerry
also makes very explicit comments about the boarding house he
lives in and the other inhabitants there who act as a sort of
family to Jerry, even though he does not really even know them.
He even includes them in his prayers at night. Albee establishes
Jerry's alienation from the rest of the world rather quickly and
then continues to fill in the whole picture of his life for the
audience. It is the pain that comes with this loneliness that forces
Jerry to kill himself with Peter's help at the end of the play. Jerry
finally finds solace after he has been stabbed, and he tells Peter:
"I came unto you and you have comforted me. Dear Peter."
Wealth and Poverty
The final major theme of The Zoo Story is wealth and poverty,
and the illusions that are created between the social and
economic classes. This theme is closely related to alienation and
loneliness because Albee establishes the societal pressures of
class as the cause of Jerry's suffering. The issue of class is
brought up early in the play when Jerry is asking Peter about his
family and his job, and then asks: "Say, what's the dividing line
between upper-middle-middle class and lower-upper-middle
class?" Obviously, Jerry belongs to neither of these classes, and
by his own admission is simply being condescending. However,
the illusions that Jerry has about Peter's life are very close to the
truth, whereas to Peter Jerry's life is completely foreign.
The Zoo Story | Style
Structure
The Zoo Story by Edward Albee is rather simple in structure. It is
set in New York's Central Park on Sunday afternoon in the
summer. The staging for the play, therefore, consists of two park
benches with foliage, trees, and sky behind them. The place
never changes, and the action of the play unfolds in a linear
manner, from beginning to end, in front of the audience.
Everything happens in the present, which gives the play its
immediacy and makes the events that unfold even more
shocking. As an audience member, watching the play makes one
feel as if one is witnessing a crime and is directly involved; this
sense of involvement is achieved through the structure of the
play.
Style
What makes The Zoo Story dense and difficult to define is the
style in which it is written. It does not fit into the purely realistic
nor the totally absurd genres that were both popular in 1958
when Albee wrote the play. The Theatre of the Absurd was a
movement that dominated the French stage after World War II,
and was characterized by radical theatrical innovations.
Playwrights in this genre used practically incomprehensible plots
and extremely long pauses in order to violate conservative
audiences' expectations of what theatre should be. Albee took
this absurd style and combined it with acute realism in order to
comment on American society in the 1950s. With The Zoo Story,
Albee points to French playwright Eugene Ionesco's idea that
human life is both fundamentally absurd and terrifying;
therefore, communication through language is equally absurd.
Albee is also drawing from existential philosophy in The Zoo
Story. Existentialism is concerned with the nature and perception
of human existence, and often deals with the idea that the basic
human condition is one of suffering and loneliness. Jerry and his
position in American society are clearly examples of this point of
view. Another literary style which began emerging around the
time that The Zoo Story was written is postmodernism.
Postmodernists continued to apply the fundamentals of
modernism, including alienation and existentialism, but went a
step further by rejecting traditional forms. Therefore, they prefer
the anti-novel over the novel and, as in The Zoo Story, the antihero over the hero. Although Albee does not belong solely in the
realistic, absurdist, existential or postmodern literary genres, it is
evident that all of these movements had an impact on The Zoo
Story and Albee as a playwright.
Literary Devices
Albee used various literary devices in The Zoo Story. The first
device is the anti-hero. An anti-hero, like a hero, is the central
character of the play but lacks heroic qualities such as courage,
physical prowess, and integrity. Anti-heroes usually distrust
conventional values and, like Jerry, they often accept and
celebrate their position as social outcasts. Along with the antihero, Albee uses satire and black humor in The Zoo Story. Satire
employs humor to comment negatively on human nature and
social institutions, while black humor places grotesque elements
along side of humorous elements in order to shock the reader
and evoke laughter in the face of difficulty and disorder. Albee
uses both of these devices in The Zoo Story to comment on the
way different social classes choose to view and ignore each other
in American society; specifically, he highlights the way in which
members of the upper classes deal with members of the lower
ones. This is illustrated with the character of Peter, who Albee
uses as an example by having Jerry methodically bring him down
to an animalistic level in order to show that he is just like
everyone else. Another device that Albee uses in The Zoo Story is
allegory. Allegory involves the use of characters, representing
things or abstract ideas, to convey a message. Jerry's story
about his landlady's dog could be seen as an allegory for his own
inability to relate to others. In the end, Jerry says that he and
the dog harbor "sadness, suspicion and indifference" for each
other, which is similar to the relationships that Jerry has with
other people. Some critics have argued that The Zoo Story is an
allegory for Christian redemption. Jerry, as the Christ-like figure,
martyrs himself to demonstrate the need for and meaningfulness
of communication. This Christian allegory viewpoint is also
evident in some of the dialogue, such as when Jerry sighs and
says "So be it!" just before impaling himself on the knife Peter is
holding. This can be viewed as a reference to Jesus Christ's
words as he dies on the cross: "Father, into your hands I
commend my spirit." Although the manner in which Albee
employs literary devices in The Zoo Story is subject to critical
interpretation, all of the devices are readily apparent and are
used to create a compelling drama.
The Zoo Story | Historical Context
Social Climate in the 1950s
The 1950s in the U.S. are viewed by many people as a period of
prosperity for American society as a whole. Socially, many catch
phrases were being used at this time, like "standard of living"
and "cost of living," which implied that life in America could be
measured based on personal income and material goods. After
experiencing the Great Depression in the 1930s and World War II
a decade later, the U.S. was eager to embrace the notion that it
had come into its own and, consequently, consumer confidence
soared. Household appliances and automobiles became available
to more people than ever before, and the television became a
prominent factor in the daily lives of Americans during the late
1950s. In 1947, a mere 14,000 families owned television sets;
ten years later that figure grew to 35 million families. In theory,
the television brought people closer together and allowed
communication to reach new heights. However, many critics
maintain that the way Albee mentions television in The Zoo Story
and the fact that Peter has difficulty carrying on anything but
empty conversation reflect on how disconnected society has
become.
Political Climate in the 1950s
Politically, the U.S. was dominated by conservative values during
the 1950s. One of the most extreme examples of this
conservative tide was the effort led by Senator Joseph McCarthy
to harass and prosecute individuals suspected to have ties with
the Communist Party. This anti-Communist sentiment in America
turned into a frenzy because of the ruthless and random nature
of the McCarthy's witch hunts. Eventually, Americans began to
react against the absurdity of these trials, although many were
afraid that they themselves would be targeted. Three other
factors also played a major role in worrying conservatives: the
emergence of rock music, movies that were becoming more and
more explicit, and especially, the publishing of Kinsey Reports in
1948 and 1953. Alfred Kinsey, a zoologist, traveled all over the
U.S. to interview over 16,000 men and women about their sexual
histories. The details that were revealed, especially those
concerning premarital sex and homosexuality, shocked the
nation. Critics objected to the fact that the researchers failed to
pass moral judgment on the data that they collected. Jerry, in
The Zoo Story, epitomizes the thirty-seven percent of males in
the Kinsey Report who reported that they had had a homosexual
experience between adolescence and old age. He is also very
eager to share the details of his homosexual experiences as a
fifteen year old, which clearly makes Peter uncomfortable.
Cultural Climate in the 1950s
The cultural climate in the late 1950s included the beginnings of
a backlash against conservative social and political views. Artists
who lived outside the mainstream or who were dissatisfied within
it began to comment boldly on this fact in their work. The Beat
Generation were members of an artistic movement that centered
in New York City and San Francisco during this time who
protested against conservative values. Film audiences also began
to idolize the tough guy at odds with "the establishment," such as
those played by Marlon Brando and, most famously, James Dean
in Rebel without A Cause (1956). The Theatre of the Absurd was
a radical movement making an impact on world drama, which
dominated the French stage after 1950. Absurdist playwrights
sought to violate conservative audiences' expectations of what
theatre should be by using incomprehensible plots, stark
settings, and unusually long pauses. Playwrights such as Eugene
Ionesco believed that life is terrifying because it is fundamentally
absurd. Edward Albee used these absurd elements in a realistic
mode with The Zoo Story, thus causing some confusion among
critics and audiences in terms of how to label the play.
The Zoo Story | Critical Overview
The Zoo Story, Edward Albee's first play, premiered on
September 28, 1959, at the Schiller Theatre Werkstatt in West
Berlin, Germany. While there, it received much praise from
critics, including Friedrich Luft who, as quoted in Critical Essays
on Edward Albee, called it a "shudder-causing drama of
superintelligent style.'' Riding high on the praise it received in
Germany, The Zoo Story finally made its way back to New York,
where it debuted off-Broadway at the Provincetown Theatre on
January 14, 1960. What made this debut even more exciting for
Albee was the fact that he was sharing the bill with Krapp's Last
Tape, a one-act play written by Samuel Beckett, one of Albee's
idols.
Most New York critics declared The Zoo Story to be a very
exciting play and viewed it as the beginning of a revitalized New
York theatre scene. Henry Hewes in the Saturday Review
claimed: "[Edward Albee] has written an extraordinary first play."
However, a few critics expressed confusion over The Zoo Story,
such as Tom Driver from Christian Century who wrote: "It is
more than a little melodramatic, and the only sense I could draw
from it is the conviction that one shouldn't talk to strangers in
Central Park." Others simply dismissed the play, such as Robert
Brustein, who in an article in the New Republic labeled the play
beat generation "claptrap." The positive reviews outweighed the
negative, however, and The Zoo Story ran for a total of 582
performances, which is remarkable for a first play. It also went
on to win the Village Voice Obie Award for best play in 1960.
Whether or not people liked The Zoo Story, they felt compelled to
discuss it, largely because of the sensational aspects of the play
and the fact that people were confused about whether the play
was absurd or realistic. Eventually, most people concluded that it
was a mixture of the two styles, but critics remained divided over
the play's message. Many critics have argued that The Zoo Story
is a social commentary on the effects that loneliness can have on
an individual in American society. George Wellwarth, in The
Theater of Protest and Paradox, claimed that The Zoo Story "is
about the maddening effect that the enforced loneliness of the
human condition has on the person who is cursed (for in our
society it undoubtedly is a curse) with the infinite capacity for
love." Other critics viewed the play as a religious allegory, such
as Rose A. Zimbardo who asserted in Twentieth Century
Literature that the images that Albee uses are "traditional
Christian symbols which...retain their original significance." John
Ditsky expressed a similar viewpoint in The Onstage Christ:
Studies in the Persistence of a Theme, declaring that "The Zoo
Story rests upon a foundation of Christ-references, and indeed
derives its peculiar structure from Jesus' favourite teaching
device, the parable." Other critics have described The Zoo Story
as a ritual confrontation with death, a morality play, a
homosexual play, and an absurd play. However, in an essay in
Edward Albee: An Interview and Essays, Mary C. Anderson
maintained that The Zoo Story can be "explained as a
sociopolitical tract, a pessimistic analysis of human alienation, a
modern Christian allegory of salvation, and an example of
absurdist and nihilist theater." She concluded that the play "has
managed to absorb these perspectives without exhausting its
many levels of meaning.''
The overall opinion of The Zoo Story from most critics is that it is
an exciting and risky first play from a playwright who has gone
on to win numerous awards for his works. After much early
success, Albee went on to garner both high praise and censure
for his work that followed The Zoo Story and Who's Afraid Of
Virginia Woolf?. He has continued to explore and experiment with
both the form and content of theatre, which is a risky venture,
especially in the commercial arena. What continues to make
Albee so fascinating for many critics and theatergoers is the fact
that, as C.W.E. Bigsby noted in Edward Albee: A Collection of
Critical Essays, "Albee has remained at heart a product of OffBroadway, claiming the same freedom to experiment and,
indeed, fail, which is the special strength of that theatre." It is his
penchant for experimentation that has caused Albee to be, as
Bigsby contended, one of those "few playwrights'' who continue
to be "frequently and mischievously misunderstood,
misrepresented, overpraised, denigrated and precipitately
dismissed." Critical opinion has had little effect on Albee as a
playwright, for he has continued to write and have his plays
produced on and off Broadway.
The Zoo Story | The Power of Albee's Dialogue
The following essay praises the power of Albee's dialogue and the
class discord that it illustrates. Coy also addresses the religious
imagery in Albee'splay.
There is very little action in Edward Albee's The Zoo Story: two
men meet, they exchange information, and one dies at the hand
of the other. But to a framework of action which any writer might
have imagined, Albee brings a master's sense of the ways in
which, psychologically, some people are able to dominate and
manipulate others, and a frankness and grotesqueness of
language which are startling even now, almost forty years after
the play's premiere.
Albee opens with an impressive display. Peter, the quiet, insular,
middle-class publisher, is reading a book on "his" bench in New
York's Central Park. Along comes Jerry, who (as we will see) is
not out for a stroll but urgently looking for someone with whom
to talk. He spies Peter, approaches him, and begins the elaborate
process of getting Peter (who wants only to be left alone) to put
down his book and surrender to Jerry's desire to talk. This
opening section of the play is too long to quote here, and in any
case should be read through or better still seen onstage, but it is
a marvel of resourcefulness.
Jerry announces that he has been to the Zoo, and when that
produces no response he yells it. Peter barely responds even to
this, so Jerry changes tactics and begins to ask Peter questions
about where they are in the Park and in what direction he has
(therefore) been walking. Peter fills his pipe as a way of trying to
ignore Jerry, who, seeing this, uses it as a way of accusing Peter
of a kind of cowardice: "Well, boy; you're not going to get lung
cancer, are you?" Peter does not rise to the bait, so Jerry
becomes more aggressive and more graphic: "No, sir. What you'll
probably get is cancer of the mouth, and then you'll have to wear
one of those things Freud wore after they took one whole side of
his jaw away. What do they call those things?"
Poor dim Peter, college-educated but not street-smart, can't stop
himself from showing that he knows the word: prosthesis—Jerry
seizes on this in a way that shows that he himself knows the
word, and sarcastically asks Peter if he is a doctor. When Peter
says no, he read about prosthetics in Time magazine, Jerry
responds that "Time< magazine is not for blockheads." This line
is generally delivered sarcastically, so that it both patronizes
Peter and shows the audience that Jerry thinks himself superior
to most of middle-class America. Finally, Jerry bullies Peter into
giving him his full attention by inflicting what is sometimes called
"liberal guilt":
JERRY: Do you mind if we talk?
PETER: (Obviously minding) Why... no, no.
JERRY: Yes you do; you do.
PETER: (Puts his book down, smiling) No, really; I don't mind.
JERRY: Yes you do.
PETER: (Finally decided) No; I don't mind at all, really.
At this point the first section, or movement, of the play comes to
an end. Many critics have pointed out that The Zoo Story is a
play about the difficulty of communication. But that is a common
problem offstage or on and only rises to dramatic urgency when
there is something urgent to be communicated. Now that Jerry
has finally succeeded in capturing Peter's full attention, the
question is: what message has Jerry brought with him from the
Zoo that he is so avid to communicate, even (or particularly) to a
total stranger?
Avid or not, Jerry suddenly seems in no hurry. He returns to the
subject of the Zoo, hinting that "it" (what "it" might be is not
explained) will be on TV tonight or in the newspapers tomorrow.
He begins to ask Peter about himself and his family, eliciting
pieces of personal information. When Jerry guesses that Peter
and his wife are not going to have any more children, Peter asks
how he could possibly know that. Jerry responds: "The way you
cross your legs, perhaps; something in the voice.... Is it your
wife?" A subtle game is afoot here: Jerry earlier attacked Peter's
manhood by implying it was somehow cowardly to smoke a pipe
rather than cigarettes, and now, with his remarks about the legs
and the voice, he seems to imply effeminacy or perhaps even
suppressed homosexuality (a line of thought to which he will
return later). In any case, he ends the line with a different kind
of attack on Peter's manhood, implying that the dominant voice
in the no-children decision, and the household, is that of Peter's
wife, whose name is never given. When Peter tacitly admits this,
Jerry actually shows a moment of compassion before briskly
moving on: "Well, now; what else?"
During this second section of the play, in which the men
exchange information about their lives, Albee avoids the dullness
which often attends exposition by two means: frequent allusions
to the Zoo and tantalizing hints about what may have happened
there (we learn that Jerry was depressed by the way the bars
separated the animals from each other and from the people but
not if he actually did anything about it), and a combination of
startling information and aggressive behavior that keeps Jerry
firmly in our minds (and Peter's) as a figure of instability and
menace.
Jerry tells Peter about his hellish rooming house, the serio-comic
loss of his parents, his first real sexual experience (while
admitting it was homosexual, he gets in another dig at Peter's
masculinity: "But that was the jazz of a very special hotel, wasn't
it?"), and his landlady, "a fat, ugly, mean, stupid, unwashed,
misanthropic, cheap, drunken bag of garbage." But the landlady,
despite being one of the most arresting offstage presences in
American drama, is only the prelude to what might be called the
third movement of the play.
It is called "The Story of Jerry and the Dog," and it must be seen
or read in its entirety, as no description could come within miles
of doing it justice. It tells of Jerry's attempt to "get through to"
the disgusting landlady's even more disgusting dog, which
attacked him whenever it caught him leaving or entering the
building. Albee makes sure that we understand that Jerry's past
attempt to reach the dog is parallel to his present attempt to
reach Peter: he has Jerry try several ways to get through to the
dog, from killing him with kindness to just plain killing him, just
as he tried several different ways to get through to Peter.
The playwright has Jerry, who has so far disgusted Peter but not
aroused his sympathy, say, "it's just that if you can't deal with
people, you have to make a start somewhere. WITH ANIMALS!
Don't you see?" Of his final truce with the dog, a sad indifference,
Jerry says, "I have learned that neither kindness nor cruelty, by
themselves...create any effect beyond themselves; and I have
learned that the two combined, together...are the teaching
emotion." This lesson Jerry learned from his experience is of
great thematic importance in the play, where every step forward
in communication, large or small, is accomplished with a
combination of kindness and cruelty.
Next comes the final section of the play. Of Jerry's story, Peter
says, in fact he yells, "I DON'T UNDERSTAND,'" but Jerry doesn't
believe him and neither do most critics. They think he does
indeed understand that Jerry is trying to tell him something
about the pain, the loneliness, and the hideous suffering of those
parts of society not normally encountered or even acknowledged
by Peter's middle class; and they think that Peter's real feelings
are more clearly seen in a subsequent line: "I DON'T WANT TO
HEAR ANYMORE." Peter prepares to leave, they say, because
"his" space has been invaded not only by an unwelcome person
but by unwelcome information, both of which threaten the
comfortable ignorance of his life.
Jerry is at first angered by Peter's refusal to comprehend, then
apparently resigned to it. But he is not ready to quit. He taunts
Peter, punches him and pushes him to the ground, challenging
him to fight for his bench. Peter refuses, fearing he will be
harmed. Jerry pulls out an ugly looking knife (a switchblade,
wicked-looking and illegal in New York, is used as a prop by most
productions) and throws it on the ground between them. Peter
cowers back. Jerry tells Peter to pick up the knife but Peter
won't. Jerry grabs Peter and says the following, slapping Peter
each time he utters the word "fight'': "You fight, you miserable
bastard; fight for that bench; fight for your parakeets; fight for
your cats, fight for your two daughters; fight for your life; fight
for your manhood, you pathetic little vegetable. You couldn't
even get your wife with a male child."
Angered at last beyond caution, Peter snatches up the knife,
even now holding it defensively. Jerry sighs heavily, says, "So be
it,'' and rushes at Peter, impaling himself on the knife and giving
himself, deliberately, a mortal wound. The words Jerry says as he
is dying are most important: "Thank you, Peter.... Thank you
very much. Oh, Peter, I was afraid I'd drive you away Peter...
thank you. I came unto you and you have comforted me. Dear
Peter." Jerry then sends Peter on his way, making sure he takes
his book with him, but asserting that the bench (and, by
implication, some part of Peter which will never be the same)
belongs to him, to Jerry.
Many critics have pointed out that the Biblical language in this
reference to Peter, together with other such language in the play
(regarding the dog, Jerry says,"AND IT CAME TO PASS THAT THE
BEAST WAS DEATHLY ILL."), and with the number of times God
is called on from the stabbing to the end of the play, suggests
Christian symbolism: Jesus (Jerry, a distantly similar name) dies
for the suffering of mankind but not before he has passed on his
gospel to his disciple Peter. This seems a reasonable inference,
since playwrights choose their words, Albee more carefully than
most. Whether the implication of Christianity expands or narrows
the impact of the play is highly debatable, but the language is
there—not by accident—and it should not be ignored.
The Zoo Story can best be understood (especially by actors, who
are trained to play intentions but not mysteries or ambiguities)
by starting off with a single, basic assumption. Jerry, lonely,
unstable, and desperate, made a life decision at the Zoo—or
perhaps even at home before he went to the Zoo "correctly." He
would leave the Zoo and walk "northerly'' in the Park until the
first human being he spotted. He would strike up a conversation
with that person, by whatever means it took, and then make the
best effort of his life to teach that person what Jerry already
knew about the sufferings of mankind, especially the sufferings
others prefer not to notice. He would force that person to
understand, or, to make a cliche literal, die trying. Jerry's suicide
is thus the last logical item on the list of "whatever it takes" to
take from Peter his ignorance, his indifference, and his
complacency. Peter may never wander preaching in the
wilderness, but he will never again draw breath without the
burden of the knowledge that Jerry has conveyed to him. That
much of the torch, at least, has been passed.
Source: Stephen Coy, in an essay for Drama for Students, Gale,
1997.
Coy is an esteemed authority on drama who has contributed to
numerous publications.
The Zoo Story | In Defense of Albee
In this essay, Johnson heartily endorses Albee's play, citing
numerous elements that merit extensive study in the classroom.
Edward Albee emerges as one of the most controversial and,
consequently, one of the most read contemporary playwrights.
He does not write of human emotions and relationships in
statements of fact that we like to hear. He uses abstract symbols
and ideas to portray unidentifiable fears, subtle truths, intangible
illusions, and the unattainable standards imposed upon society.
Albee is difficult to understand because he does not discuss
anything concrete. Facts are sensible. Abstracts are disturbing.
To write about the mystical secrets of life without presenting any
kind of solution exasperates the reader. But this may be Albee's
intent. He once said that if after a play the audience is concerned
only about finding their cars, the play failed. Therefore, Albee
bares the souls of his characters—his audience. He suggests the
idiosyncrasies and failings of man and his sociality. And in doing
so he often uses the outcast, the distorted man, the pervert.
This is what is shocking and terrifying. And this is one reason
why many English teachers refuse to approach his plays in the
classroom. Not only is he frustrating to interpret, but he also
unveils some very eccentric exponents in society. They are not
the type that provoke comfortable discussion. But in my opinion
this is not reason enough to shelve Albee. He remains our most
colorful coeval dramatist and as such belongs in a modern,
progressive curriculum. He refuses to be ignored by the theater.
Likewise, we cannot ignore him. Albee depicts some general
human weaknesses that are argumentative and provide
stimulating discussion for students....
The Zoo Story might be used for student study, because human
contact and communication are lacking among young people. It
is about a wandering homosexual who, unable to adjust to his
own world and hating the conventional world, latches onto a
stranger sitting on a park bench and tricks this typical father of
parakeets and cats into killing him. Here again Albee resorts to
violence. A closer analysis of this play may bring out some ideas
for classroom use.
Three human defects exemplified are lack of communication,
alienation from society, and mediocrity. Jerry approaches Peter,
sitting on a park bench where he has been coming the last four
years, and says, "Do you mind if we talk?" And Peter, "obviously
minding," replies that he does not mind. Immediately we see that
people really do not communicate. They do not say what they
actually mean or are thinking. Peter becomes "bewildered by the
seeming lack of communication.'' And Jerry, who feels the need
to make contact with someone—anyone—says, "I don't talk to
many people—except to say like: give me a beer, or where's the
John, or what time does the feature go on, or keep your hands to
yourself, buddy...." How trite and nondescript we are! Very
seldom does one human being fully and completely talk with
someone, talk with him in such a way as to know what really
makes him tick. This is true also about young people. Their music
is loud so they do not have to converse; they go to movies so
they can look rather than talk; they watch TV rather than visit;
even their cars make so much noise it is not necessary to think
or talk.
Jerry felt the need. "But every once in a while I like to talk to
somebody, really talk; like to get to know somebody, know all
about him.'" And so Jerry begins asking questions but does not
"really carry on a conversation." The experiences he relates
about the dog only indicate the distance one will go to satisfy a
need, to make contact. "A person has to have some way of
dealing with SOMETHING." "People. With an idea; a concept. And
where better, where ever better in this humiliating excuse for a
jail, where better to communicate one single, simple-minded idea
than in an entrance hall?'' The unimportance of the place of
communication becomes evident. But what is important is that
one must communicate; and the entrance hall, even with a dog
in an entrance hall, would be a start.
It is at this point in the play that Albee again makes us aware of
his theory of the necessity of violence for contact. Jerry says in
talking about his dog, "I have learned that neither kindness nor
cruelty by themselves, independent of each other, creates any
effect beyond themselves." The two of them together are the
motivating device. And then the beautiful and desperate lines,
"We neither love nor hurt because we do not try to reach each
other." We are so terribly misunderstood. We cannot understand
love. How is love to be interpreted? By whom? This aspect of the
play right here could trigger a very healthy discussion among
students. And again at the end of the short play Jerry cries in
desperation, "Don't you have any idea, not even the slightest,
what other people need?'' People need to be needed, and they
need someone to need. They must have someone whom they
make contact, with whom they can talk and be understood. If
people do not make contact with someone, they resort to various
perversions, trying to find something with which to identify.
This point brings us to another human defect. The reader is made
aware of Jerry's alienation and aloneness when he describes his
apartment and points out the two picture frames that are empty.
"I don't see why they need any explanation at all. Isn't it clear? I
don't have pictures of anyone to put in them." And his more
complete isolation from the square world is quite obvious when
he says, "I was a h-o-m-o-s-e-x-u-a-l." Thus, when Jerry relates
his experiences with the dog, we have a sense not only of his
failure to communicate but also of his reaction to people. "...
Animals are indifferent to me...like people." People are trapped in
their own little worlds like animals in a zoo, and everyone is "...
separated by bars from everyone else." Some do not seem to
mind their cage, because they accept this poor excuse for living
and find a certain amount of satisfaction in things—parakeets,
cats, a park bench.
This, then, brings us to the third human failing, that of
mediocrity. Peter is the "ordinary," life-size. He is married and
has a family of girls, parakeets, and cats. He has an ordinary job
and can talk about ordinary things. When Peter becomes
perturbed at the thought of losing his bench, he says, "I've come
here for years; I have hours of great pleasure, great satisfaction,
right here. And that's important to a man. I'm a responsible
person, and I'm a GROWN-UP. This is my bench, and you have
no right to take it away from me." He has found comfort and
security in the everyday things that do not need explaining, so
much so that he cannot bear the thought of losing one. Jerry
sees him as he really is: "You are a vegetable." He further taunts
him, bringing out more of his simpleness and sameness,
"...You've told me about your home, and your family, and your
own little zoo. You have everything, and now you want this
bench.'' Throughout the play there are indications and prevailing
overtones of being trapped. At the very end of the play as Jerry
dies, he says, "... Your parakeets are making the dinner...the
cats...are setting the table...." How very absurd! To be subjected
and tied to these menial, dull, unstimulating tasks and
responsibilities that we make for ourselves. The sad truth is that
these things might be bearable if at the same time we could
communicate.
This is the prevailing theme of The Zoo Story—communication. It
is obvious at once, and with a little guidance and prodding
students can recognize quite readily the handicaps and limitation
of man and his society as seen in this play. The results of a study
of this play are encouraging, as is the idea that attacking a
contemporary play on contemporary society is contemporary
education.
Now, whether or not Albee deserves to enter the classroom
depends upon whether or not the educators—the English
educators—are willing to admit him. I firmly believe our students
must be taught literature written during their time. And Edward
Albee should be a part of every American literature course!
Source: Carolyn E. Johnson, "In Defense of Albee" in English
Journal, Vol. 57, no. 1, January, 1968, pp. 21-23, 29.
Johnson is a critic and educational administrator.
The Zoo Story | Compare and Contrast
1950s: The television set came into prominence in the American
household. By 1957, a total of 35 million U.S. families had a
television in their homes.
Today: Almost all American families, rich and poor, have at least
one television set, and with the emergence of cable television,
the amount of channels available is well over 100. The television
is now an integral part of American society.
1950s: Conservative family values dominated American society,
with so-called "typical" nuclear families like Peter's in The Zoo
Story viewed as ideal. Early television shows, such as Father
Knows Best, that depicted such "ideal" families were extremely
popular.
Today: Families are depicted in a much more realistic light on
television today, on shows like Roseanne. The nuclear family is
no longer viewed as the "ideal," and most Americans consider
themselves to have moderate values. Nevertheless, a very vocal
conservative Christian movement is leading the fight to return to
the idealized view of the family that was popular in the 1950s.
1950s: Consumer confidence and general prosperity within
middle- and upper-class American society soared. However, this
prosperity failed to carry over from white males to the Americans
in lower classes, women, and ethnic minorities, who continued to
earn less money and endure more job discrimination than white
males.
Today: The U.S. economy is steady, but after some economic
hard times, consumer confidence is far lower than during the
1950s. White males still continue to make more money than
women and minorities, but the gap is slowly closing. Many
women and members of minority groups have been able to
secure employment in powerful, high ranking professions.
Actually it is currently not steady with the problems associated
with the fall of the sub prime market, the American economy and
oil prices – a possible set of issues that could be drawn upon for
student use in their group performance task.
Points to consider:
Edward Albee was a child adopted by rich parents. Describe his
attitude towards his upbringing from reading or seeing his oneact play The American Dream. In what ways does his upbringing
evidence itself in The Zoo Story?
Research the concept of Theatre of the Absurd. Does The Zoo
Story belong under that heading? Why or why not?
Compare The American Dream point-by-point with Eugene
Ionesco's absurdist play The Bald Soprano. How are the two
plays alike? How are they different?
Why do you think it was important to Jerry to make Peter realize
the misery that exists beneath everyday life? What was Jerry
trying to achieve?
Extension texts – Who’s Afraid of Virginia Wolf – Edward Albee
The Bald Prima Donna – Eugene Ionesco