Albee, Genet Plays Open Here Tonight

A bill of two important plays opens tonight at the Hotel Bostonian. Under the direction of David Wheeler, the Theatre Company of Boston will present Edward Albee's The Zoo Story and Jean Genet's The Maids.

The Zoo Story, dating from 1958, is the work that first brought Albee into the public eye, in Europe and then in the United States. It concerns the fateful encounter of two men on and around a bench in New York's Central Park.

The Maids, first produced in 1946 and revised in 1948, remains Genet's finest dramatic achievement to date. The burden falls on two actresses, who are servants that play at being each other and at being their mistress. The work's wheels-within-wheels make-believe yields a profound and fascinating study of illusion and reality, in which Genet's vision differs considerably from that of Pirandello, who dealt with the same subject most brilliantly.