Edward Albee’s The Zoo Story is at Home on the Fringe With the Great Salt Lake Fringe Festival

By Joel Applegate

Discovered at the top of The Zoo Story, now playing at the Great Salt Lake Fringe Festival, is the actor Anthony Kinz, who plays Peter and reads a Stephen King novel. We patiently watch his eyes move over the page as we wait for the show to begin. Peter is clearly a serious man, with his book and his pipe, and certainly not one to be trifled with.

But let’s be clear: trifled with, he is, in the person of poor Jerry (Ryan Hopkins), who is at first a seemingly nonthreatening presence. He starts with some awkward personal questions, which Peter politely answers. Kinz’s performance here is measured, natural, and calmly restrained.

Edward Albee knows the fringes of sanity and what happens when the line is crossed. What is The Zoo Story though? A reach for human kindness? An attempt to make a sorely needed friend? An examination of how much we need each other, or how often we want to be left alone?

Director Regan C. Whimpey has guided his actors in a careful dance, appropriately choosing “Hey You” from Pink Floyd’s The Wall to lead us into the foreboding of a needy transient, Jerry. Hopkins’ fine performance is kinetic and grasping, but he plays Jerry first as a lost child, then with a hint of menace, and finally he releases his anxieties from a spring-loaded place somewhere inside his head.

As Jerry pushes Peter to reveal ever more details about his life, we start trying to figure out Jerry’s motives, and the dialogue slips from normal to weird. Jerry is meddling in Peter’s life now, posing invasive questions that are mildly startling and then approach existential threats. Here’s where we see that Albee’s play is not just about a lost soul. It’s about what obligates us to one another, and the transposition of real experiences as a substitute for fantasy.

Jerry tells us “it takes a long distance to come a very short way” and that he’s “made many attempts at contact.” Is this what Jerry has always failed at? He doesn’t fail at becoming a master manipulator of Peter, and the outcome is swift and startling. Flummoxed and bewildered, Peter becomes the instrument for suicide by stranger.

Survivors Theatre Company’s The Zoo Story is yet another Fringe offering that gives us time to think, to feel, to enjoy about a topic that is relevant and poignant.

Survivors Theatre Company presents The Zoo Story by Edward Albee.

90 S Rio Grande Ste. B, Salt Lake City, Utah 84101, Box Office Location: 110 S Rio Grande St. Salt Lake City, Utah 84101
Aug 11, 10:30 PM; Aug 12, 9:00 PM
$5.00 for Festival admission. You can then buy a single ticket for $10 per show. OR save the five dollars, get more bang for your buck, and see more of the GSL Fringe Festival by buying a 3-pack ($25) or a 10-pack ($70) and take in more great shows! The Festival runs through August 12^th.
Contact: gslfboxofficestaff@gmail.com
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