The Zoo Story

[B][I]my review from Facebook[/I][/B]:

You all know me. You know that if a show is bad, I'll tell you. You know that if a show is good, I'll tell you...but when a show is beyond what I expected..if it touches something so deep inside of me that even my therapist can't extract a tear of self realization...or clarity..I WILL WRITE ABOUT IT.

Even after spending some glorious hours chatting afterwards with friends, old and new alike...I can still feel what I felt at the end of this play. I can still be moved to tears, my hands will still shake as I recall the last few minutes of this performance.

You guys know me. I'm the whip toting stage manager that freaks when you miss your cue, or spike mark...or get caught touching someone else's props. I'm the one that hides in a corner during a moving moment, or when you are getting a standing ovation and sheds a few quiet tears in private because I am so proud of you. Rarely, do I let you know...or see.

Until tonight. I am going to write so you can hear my voice saying, "if you miss this show, it is the same to me as if you have missed your spike mark."


Maybe you've seen The Zoo Story performed before. This was my first time, so perhaps this is why I was so moved, but frankly, I think it had more to do with the direction and the actors. I am telling you LOUD AND CLEAR, that this is something you really don't want to miss.


Here, is how I feel:



Self realization, or the ability to see clearly what we often take for granted, is a dying art form. In a world moving too fast, or muddled by lack of logic, absurdity or the simple madness of never facing yourself in the mirror, we lose contact with each other. Communication becomes incommunicable...we speak but our words don't penetrate...we see but through mist...we touch but never get close. And for those of us, me included, that have had a life that has been filled with every color of the spectrum...who have experienced great joy and great pain...and everything in between....The Zoo Story literally...WAKES YOU UP.



I can not tell you the release I felt. I cannot explain to you what it was like, for I am sure that for every emotion I felt, there were others that extracted the same intensity, but perhaps not the same emotion. This play speaks to mankind...to humanity, or the lack thereof...and twists your heart in such a way that the floodgates are open. It is a contradiction of the story itself...paradoxical..metephorically enriched...



It unleashed in me my own silent scream. So moved, that at the end of the play, when the lights were on, and people were moving to the lobby...I could not. I sat stunned. I wasn't even sure I was breathing. I eventually got up, knees weak, and walked around waiting to congratulate the actors, but I really couldn't speak or think. I went back into the theater in the dark and cried.



When I spoke to Michael Arve, my words stuck in my throat. I have not felt this way in many, many years. Even now, as I am typing this, I am crying.



I am also going again. The last performance is today, Sunday, at 2pm. This is my priority for the day.



I will add this...that the caliber of acting was incredible. I told Louie tonight that at one point, as he described his interactions with the landlady's dog...he was on SR. He had my complete attention, however, I felt that if I looked to SL...where he was envisioning the dog....that I would, indeed...SEE THIS DOG.



And it wasn't so much in the movement of the actors, it was that the actors were moved. These characters were real, believable, tangible and complete. There wasn't an emotion that Louie and Stephen did not manage to uncover...in both themselves and me, as an audience member.



This play changed me. I'm not sure how long I am going to feel this complete range of emotions. It's a little unnerving. But that was the intent, I believe...to be UNNERVED.

Go see this show. Please.



Peace,

Kat