Goodman's 'The Hairy Ape' a searing success
Watching The Hypocrites' searing version of Eugene O'Neill's "The Hairy Ape" isn't easy. But turning away from it, especially in its final wrenching moments, is impossible.
The 1922 expressionist tragedy - the latest production in Goodman Theatre's ongoing O'Neill celebration - chronicles the downward spiral of the apish Yank, a coal stoker on an ocean liner, whose sense of self is shattered after society brands him a beast and casts him aside.
Essentially an examination of class and identity, the play depicts the brutalization and dehumanization of the working class by the bourgeoisie. It unfolds as a nightmare, with Yank lurching from his ship's sweltering engine room to the swank streets of New York City, to the jail cell, the union hall and finally the city zoo in a desperate attempt to find a place where he belongs.
Spanning a taut 70 minutes, director Sean Graney's production is a relentless bit a theater, with an undercurrent of desperation and danger punctuated by surreal comedy and raw emotion.
Purists might quibble with Graney's staging of Yank's final monologue encompassing the final desperate act of a displaced man. A provocative departure from O'Neill's original, it is an immensely powerful expression, and particularly resonant now, as more and more Americans discover that the economic engine can function without them.
The heavy lifting, literally and figuratively, falls to Chris Sullivan. The imposing Sullivan delivers a powerhouse performance as the brutish Yank, the titular ape and the play's most fully developed character. Unsettling but utterly compelling, Sullivan's acting is a superb display of raw energy focused to a fine point. Remember his name, you'll likely read it again elsewhere, accompanied by equally glowing reviews.
Presiding over the ship's sweltering furnace room, Yank rides roughshod over fellow stokers including Long (a passionate Rob McLean), the socialist who tries to awaken Yank's class consciousness, and the aging Paddy (Kurt Ehrmann) who drinks and reminisces over an idealized past to escape the dismal present. There, in the bowels of the ship, covered in sweat and coal dust, Yank forges his identity. There, where he exists as a necessary cog in the economic engine, he finds the place where he belongs.
"That's me, the punch," he says.
Yet for all his fierce self-assurance, his proclamations seem to suggest self-doubt, as if Yank recognizes his insignificance but tries to convince himself otherwise. The intrusion of the privileged Mildred (Jennifer Coombs) - the shallow, do-gooder daughter of the ship's owner - into Yank's realm, and the cruel epithet she hurls at him, disrupts Yank's ordered existence. The emotional and psychological panic that results sends Yank out of the ship and onto the streets.
It all plays out on Tom Burch's ingenious set, a masterful suggestion of a three-tiered ocean liner outlined in red neon, which required the reconfiguration of the Owen Theatre so that the audience sits in the space normally occupied by the stage. Miles Polaski's evocative soundscape and lighting designer Jared Moore's unforgiving lighting enhance the nightmarish mood.
"The Hairy Ape"
Rating: 3½ stars
Location: Goodman Theatre, 170 N. Dearborn St., Chicago
Times: 7:30 p.m. Tuesday to Thursdays; 8 p.m. Fridays; 2 and 8 p.m. Saturdays through Feb. 21
Running time: About 70 minutes, no intermission
Tickets: $12-$20
Parking: Paid lots nearby, discount parking with validation in the James R. Thompson Center garage
Box office: (312) 443-3800 or goodmantheatre.org
Rating: For adults, contains strong language, violent situations