Larger	The American Dream and Zoo Story Author: Edward Albee
	Book Information Publisher: Plume Book Type: Paperback Rating: 4 ISBN-13: 9780452278899 - ISBN-10: 0452278899 Publication Date: 10/1/1997 Pages: 128

An unqualified genius with language, Edward Albee has a fair claim to being the USA's most important living playwright, though most would give the nod to Arthur Miller. *The Zoo Story* and *The American Dream* are among Albee's first plays, and both dabble in the absurdism that defines his work. The plays are very different from each other: *The Zoo Story* is a more serious play that builds slowly toward the inevitable, while *The American Dream* is more of a nonsense-farce, with echoes of Ionesco and Becket. But the logic of *The Zoo Story* and the comic brevity of *The American Dream* make these plays much easier to get a handle on than his later *Who's Afraid of Virginia Woolf* and *A Delicate Balance*. In fact, both plays have a spiffy economy that Albee's work seemed to lose until his recent masterpiece, *Three Tall Women*.