The American Dream and Zoo Story

by Edward Albee

Paperback, 1963

Status

Available

Call number

812

Genres

All Topics

Fiction

Publication

Signet (1963), Paperback, 128 pages

Description

Pulitzer Prize-winning author Edward Albee is one of our most important American playwrights. And nowhere is his dramatic genius more apparent than in two of his probing early works, The American Dream and The Zoo Story.The New Yorker hailed The American Dream as "unique ... brilliant ... a comic nightmare, fantasy of the highest order." The story of one of America's most dysfunctoinal families, it is a ferocious, uproarious attack on the substitution of artificial values for real values-a startling tale of murder and morality that rocks middle-class ethics to its complacent foundations. The Zoo Story is a harrowing depiction of a young man alienated from the human race-a searing story of loneliness and the desperate need for recognition that builds to a violent, shattering climax. Together, these plays show men and women at their most hilarious, heartbreaking, and above all, human-and demonstrate why Edward Albee continues to be one of our greatest living dramatists.… (more)

User reviews

LibraryThing member TakeItOrLeaveIt

The Zoo story is a riveting tale of a "permanent transient" in conversation with a family man. Dealing with class issues, liberalism v stoicism, and the rise of the American progressivist, Albee throws back funny in the faces of those laughing along. American Dream not as good deals with similar

issues in a safe space to be dangerous, something Albee has been doing the fifty+ years he's been writing quality theatre.

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LibraryThing member flh4ever

The American Dream is so bizarre but then absurdists would say that so is life. We're born, we wait around or play games, and then we die. The language doesn't matter, the point doesn't matter, none of it matters in an absurd world. After having read so many absurdist plays, I just did not

particularly like this one-it was a little more tiresome to read than others. The Zoo Story, though, was confusing but I just had to know what Jerry was getting at and what was going to happen-he had me on the edge of my seat. The ending really surprised me-not that it was insane, but the particulars. I thought the plot and the characters made more sense this time around.

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LibraryThing member 391

"The Zoo Story" is fascinating and startling. Albee creates two distinct yet unknown characters, and their story is extremely compelling.

LibraryThing member DeborahJ2016

Both scripts are prefaced by playwright Albee himself. Albee's works are meant to be performed, not read as literature, but a good addition to any modern-era theatre script library.

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