ARCA Images ‘The Zoo Story’ Makes a Real Language Barrier Part of the Story

Caleb Casas as Jerry and Caleb Scott as Peter in ARCA Images “The Zoo Story,” opening Friday, Nov. 6 and running through Sunday, Nov. 15 at the Westchester Cultural Arts Center. (Photo courtesy of Arca Images)

Spanish language theater company ARCA Images began its current season with Arthur Miller’s “Death of a Salesman.” It continues with Edward Albee’s “The Zoo Story.”

Artistic director Alexa Kuve wanted to find a way to have her company mark America’s 250^th anniversary.

“What better way than bringing American playwrights to the Hispanic community,” she said.

Opening Friday, Nov. 6 and running through Sunday, Nov. 15 at Westchester Cultural Arts Center, ARCA Images’ production of Edward Albee’s “The Zoo Story” (‘La historia del zoológico’) brings two men from different worlds into conversation across a language divide that may be familiar to Miamians.

“I can only speak a few basic phrases of Spanish. That’s like all of the gringos in Florida, right?” says Caleb Scott, who plays Peter in the two-person play.

Caleb Scott, left, plays Peter opposite Caleb Casas’ Jerry in ARCA Images’ “The Zoo Story.” Scott speaks only a few Spanish phrases, while Casas delivers his role in Spanish, bringing a real language barrier to the characters’ struggle to connect. (Photo courtesy of ARCA Images.)

Albee’s one act follows Jerry, a restless stranger who interrupts Peter, a publishing executive reading on a park bench in New York’s Central Park. Jerry presses Peter to listen to the story of his life and connect with him. Their encounter grows into a confrontation and ends in violence.

The production was first conceived with two Spanish-speaking actors in the roles. Director Carlos Celdrán had an idea that would add a cultural and language divide without changing Albee’s text. The divide could deepen the distance between the characters.

“Because the premise is that Jerry is seeking the attention of the other person, the understanding of him, the communication with him, so just with this cultural language barrier, we are stretching that gap,” Kuve said.

Kuve immediately had in mind who to cast as the American. After seeing Scott in Miami New Drama’s “Seven Deadly Sins,” a play presented outdoors during the pandemic on Lincoln Road, she had always hoped to cast him in one of her shows.

Caleb Scott, left, and Caleb Casas star as Peter and Jerry, respectively, in ARCA Images’ production of Edward Albee’s “The Zoo Story.” (Photo of Casas by Eduardo Rawdriguez courtesy of ARCA Images)

“I have an eye,” she said. “I always get the good actor.”

But Scott initially turned down the role. “I said ‘no’ at first. I hedged. I said, ‘I think you need to find someone who’s bilingual because the Spanish comprehension is going to be hard for me.’ ”

Caleb Casas, who plays Jerry, delivers his role completely in Spanish.

“I didn’t want the entire rehearsal process to be about me figuring out what was happening,” Scott said. “But then when I talked to Carlos and Alexa and we had a conversation about it. I was really intrigued by the idea.”

The intrigue went further when he accepted the role.

Caleb Casas’ Jerry gets too close for comfort to Caleb Scott’s Peter. (Photo courtesy of ARCA Images)

“The process of rehearsals and making this play is really like about the story of the play in real time,” he said. “We’ve been struggling to communicate, just like we’re struggling to communicate in the play.”

The production is not being presented as a bilingual adaptation. Kuve described it as a Spanish-language production with English lines, using the original translation by Mexican Víctor Weinstock. The actor, director, playwright and founder of the Teatro de Fuego company biography lists him as a student of playwright Albee.

The idea establishes a wider gap between the characters, “without changing anything, without adding a comma,” Kuve said.

Scott’s Spanish-speaking co-star described the exchange as an effort to make the characters’ difficult communication feel real.

“It’s been interesting, exciting, because I try to explain myself in Spanish and the other guy kind of understands Spanish. In real life for Caleb and me, it is very interesting because I know more English than Caleb knows Spanish. So, it’s complicated,” Casas said.

For Scott’s part in the language experiment, it required preparation beyond learning the lines. He worked with a coach to get the Spanish phrases he speaks right, then studied the English version of Jerry’s dialogue while Casas delivered the lines in Spanish.

Caleb Casas as Jerry, left, and Caleb Scott as Peter face the challenge at the heart of ARCA Images’ production: trying to communicate across English and Spanish. (Photo courtesy of Arca Images)

“It’s surprising how in the process of needing to be able to comprehend and communicate with Caleb, that a play I assumed was so much about language ended up being about physicality and the way we communicate with our bodies and expressions. I have to focus in ways I’ve never had to before because I don’t know every word he’s saying. I know what the story is and I know what he’s saying . . . I’ve latched on to certain phrases and words. But I really have to look at him, watch him,” Scott said.

Albee wrote “The Zoo Story” in 1958; it premiered in Berlin in 1959, then opened in New York in 1960. Scott said some of its dialogue sounds like a “ghost of the ’50s,” but the play’s struggle to connect across a divide feels immediate. He said this production resonates “because of the climate we’re in,” with “the divisions that we’re existing inside of” and how little people communicate what they need and want.

He doesn’t see the play, though, as offering answers. “I don’t think it’s particularly hopeful,” he said. Albee shows a society in trouble and “here’s a play about how messed up it is.” But the play’s tragic finale can prompt audiences to consider their own role in the conflicts they see.

At the heart of Edward Albee’s “The Zoo Story” is a story of isolation. ARCA Images compounds the isolation by presenting a language barrier. (Photo courtesy of ARCA Images)

“Is this really what we are and how we behave?” Scott said, describing the question he hopes people might carry out of the theater. “Maybe we should behave differently.”

Kuve said she looks for a universal message when choosing plays. The conflicts in “The Zoo Story” continue to matter because they reflect something about people that persists across time and place.

“It’s relevant because unfortunately we don’t learn, my friend. We don’t learn,” she said. Making the connection between the current production and her last production of “Death of a Salesman,” she said they share much of the same theme.

“It happened in the ’60s, the ’50s, the ’20s and it is still happening, and so I always look at it from the human experience.”

For Kuve, theater makes that human experience visible. She sees the play as speaking less to one particular society than to the behavior and needs people share.

Caleb Casas as Jerry and Caleb Scott as Peter in “The Zoo Story,” where a conversation between strangers becomes a confrontation over a park bench. (Photo courtesy of ARCA Images)

“I don’t know if it’s this society or that society,” Kuve said. “It’s that human being.”

“One of the beauties of our craft is to put it on a stage,” she added. “So you see it.”

WHAT: ARCA Images presents Edward Albee’s “The Zoo Story” (“La Historia del Zoológico”). Performed in Spanish and English, with simultaneous English translation available through headphones.

WHEN: 8:30 p.m., Friday and Saturday; 5 p.m. Sunday. Opens Friday, Nov. 6 through Sunday, Nov. 15.

WHERE: Westchester Cultural Arts Center, 7930 S.W. 40th St., Miami.

COST: $39.20, $33.60 for students and seniors.

INFORMATION: (305) 943-5103 and https://arcaimages.org

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