Currently playing upstairs in Chaplins Pub on Hawkins Street in Dublin 2 is the Judder Theatre production of Edward Albee’s first play ‘The Zoo Story’.

Written in 1958 this one-act play concerns two characters, Peter and Jerry, who meet one Sunday afternoon on a park bench in the Phoenix Park in Dublin – Central Park in New York was the original setting. Peter is a wealthy publishing executive earning 200,000 euros a year. Married, he has a wife, two daughters, two cats, and two parakeets. He sits reading a book (Malcolm Gladwell’s ‘David and Goliath’ – an appropriate choice for what is about to unfold) and minding his own business. Jerry approaches him. Jerry is an isolated and eccentric bearded man who strikes up a conversation with the unresponsive Peter – imposing on his peaceful state by interrogating him and forcing him to listen to stories about his life and the reason behind his visit to the zoo that day. Jerry lives in a boarding house in Palmerstown and tells tales of his housemates, his lustful, alcoholic landlady and her vicious dog.

Eventually, Peter tires of the encounter and tries to leave. Jerry does not respond well to this rejection.

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