Before he started his master’s program at Minnesota State University, Casey Ring spent 10 years as executive director of Olde Towne Dinner Theatre in Sioux Falls. He said he spent most of the time doing bookkeeping, but once a year he got to direct a show.
That directing took him back to high school in St. Paul when he was involved in productions, and to Augustana University where, although he participated in theater, he received his undergraduate degree in history and education.
“My parents just said, ‘We’re not paying for a theater degree.’ And I was like, ‘OK.’ And this is where I ended up anyway,” he said.
It’s not surprising then that for his directorial debut he chose “At Home at the Zoo,” by Edward Albee. One of the leads, Peter, may have reminded him of himself.
“I find Peter to be this guy who thinks that he’s got everything figured out,” Ring said. “He’s hit the American Dream on the head: great job, good wife, two daughters. You know, good home. Everything.”
The one thing he hasn’t found, however, is passion.
“And that’s kind of what makes life exciting to me. And what makes life worth living is those things that you’re passionate about.”
His passion will be on display in the production of “At Home at the Zoo” that runs through Saturday at MSU’s Andreas Theatre.
Although Ring took 10 years for his theatrical journey, Albee actually took 45 years to complete what became this show. It began back in 1959 with the release of “The Zoo Story,” a confrontation between Peter and Jerry in Central Park. Although it was one of Albee’s most successful plays, it seemed unsatisfying to him and needed a prequel, which he wrote later as “Homelife.”
This addition, which became the combined show’s first act, revolves around the marriage of Peter and Ann and ends with Peter leaving to go read a book in Central Park.
“How did ‘The Zoo Story’ become a two-act play?” Albee is quoted as asking on the website edwardalbeesociety.org. “It’s really very simple: It always had been; I just hadn’t told myself.”
Once he set himself to writing the prequel, Albee wrote, ‘”Homelife’ fell from my mind to the page.” Writing about Peter’s wife, Ann, provided context for what happened in the park confrontation between Peter and Jerry.
In some ways, the story of how “At Home at the Zoo” came about is more complex than the story of “At Home at the Zoo” itself. To figure out the story, Ring received assistance from Ryan Sturgis, a theater veteran who always dreamed of playing Jerry, he said.
“Some of the creative challenge was just wrestling with the text itself,” the director said. He considers Albee to be intrinsically an absurdist who asks, “What does it really matter if we’re all going to die?”
So Ring prepared himself for the task. He researched Albee, looking for clues on how to approach the show. He determined all of the blocking (movement by the actors on stage) to aid the discovery as it came to life on stage.
“It’s been really nice to be able to talk through, and my conception of the show has actually changed,” Ring said. With the help of these discussions with his cast, he has found more connections between the newer first act and the 64-year-old second act. This has led to a clearer artistic vision, he said.
Jerry has been on Ryan Sturgis’ “bucket list” of characters since he played him in a single scene during his undergraduate work. Now, one week before his 40th birthday, he gets that chance.
“The greatest dramatic writers throughout history have the ability to utilize words to communicate things most of us can only feel,” Sturgis said, “and they do so by developing unique, often eccentric characters that both mirror and heighten reality. Characters that most of us can feel simultaneously comforted and completely confused by.”
He sees Jerry as a character who is both alien and relatable. He says that while he’s very intense, it’s possible that today he might be placed on the autism spectrum.
“The thing I love about playing him is finding the emotional mix between his intense, absurd, almost magical ability to read and empathize with other people and his complete and utter bewilderment at their simplicity, their inability to connect with him,” Sturgis said.
Sturgis’ connection with Jerry, and an epiphany Ring experienced a few weeks ago, have fueled the director’s change in understanding of the show.
He said he recognized that, while his pre-blocking technique worked well for the first act, it just felt out of synch for the second, when Peter and Jerry meet in the park. This has led to conversations between Ring, Sturgis and the actor who plays Peter, Grey Robertson, and Ring loosened his grip on the second act.
“And so one of the things that I had to do with the second act was relinquish a bit of that control” and let Sturgis go with his feelings, he said. “The first act, to me, it’s very much like classical music, and the second act is very much like jazz. It’s more free flowing and freewheeling.”
He has encouraged Sturgis, while staying within the framework that’s been set, to “go nuts, surprise me.” For a 25-minute monologue in the second act, for example, they took one rehearsal to go through and discuss it line by line. This created new staging that better represents this new interpretation.
Ring said the result is a cohesive show that has two very different acts. And that’s OK, coming as they do from the beginning and the end of one of America’s great playwrights’ careers.
“I think this is a show that will make people laugh. I mean, it’s got a lot of really heartfelt moments and a lot of really heartbreaking moments,” Ring said.