class="">At Home at the Zoo

Focus: 12 independent/private spaces in NTF 2024

After The Goat, or Who is Sylvia? (dir. Alexandru Dabija, 2007), Edward Albee returns to ACT Theatre with a story about love, but also about the cruelty we inflict on each other every day. With a certain brutality and Albee’s characteristic dark humor, the text ‘At Home at the Zoo’, staged in its entirety for the first time in Romania, combines the 1958 classic ‘The Zoo Story’ with the one-act play ‘Home Life’, written in 2004. ‘Home Life’ precedes Peter’s (Ionuț Grama) fateful encounter with Jerry (István Téglás) on a bench in Central Park, introducing Peter along with his wife Ann (Ada Condeescu). Beneath the appearance of normalcy lies a captivating human story, exploring themes of isolation, loneliness, and dehumanisation.

“Alongside its ever-relevant themes, such as lack of communication, sexuality, and class differences, Edward Albee’s At Home at the Zoo brings forward a fascinating question up for debate: when and to what extent is it appropriate to be guided by our animalistic instincts? And when, and for how long, should we keep these instincts under control? Regardless of the choices we might make, as we watch and listen to the play’s three characters, we come to the conclusion that animal instincts are deeply embedded in our DNA. No matter how much we try to deny their existence, sooner or later, these instincts will surface in ways that are extremely surprising or sometimes even shocking, reminding each of us: ‘You are not a vegetable. Relax. You are an animal. And you are an animal too.'” – (Silviu Debu)

Photo: Alex Iureș and Albert Dobrin