Watching the Second Stage Theatre production of Edward Albee’s Peter and Jerry last night, I found myself drawn back to, of all places, high school.
For those who don’t know Peter and Jerry, it’s actually two one-act plays on the same bill: Albee’s landmark The Zoo Story comprises Act II, while Act I, Homelife, is a “prequel†that was first staged as a companion piece in 2004.
So why was high school on my mind? Because somewhere between 1977 and 1979, my high school English class (a general course, not a drama class or advanced class) was assigned to read The Zoo Story, and indeed we read it out loud over a couple of days. I remembered the play generally from then, although not specifically, and as it unfolded last night, and blew off the cobwebs in my mind, I was stunned.
What enlightenment, foresight or radicalism had placed this play – then less than 20 years old at that time – into the curriculum of a suburban Connecticut high school? How did the slatternly, drunken landlady, let alone the black queen, make it past whatever moral guardians were in place? I truly have no idea, but I am eternally appreciative (even if my classmates should have been spared my one-note, uninflected speed reading of the role of Jerry one day).
I know nothing of current English curriculums today, as I have no children. But my experience last night, reconnecting with dramatic literature that I read before I was old enough to understand it, indeed before my teacher probably had the capacity to make it comprehensible, was eye opening. I hope modern classics are still so easily adopted as required reading, and that Angels in America, Wit, and the plays of August Wilson (to name only a few) are already in backpacks in hallways across the country, not just for the drama obsessed, but for the general student, the honors student, the jocks and the stoners alike.
Posted on Friday, November 2nd, 2007 at 4:32 pm
by
Howard Sherman
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