The Hairy Ape
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The Hairy Ape is an expressionist play by Eugene O'Neill (1922).
[edit] Plot
It tells the story of a brutish, unthinking laborer known as Yank, as he searches for a sense of belonging in a world controlled by the rich. At first Yank feels secure as he stokes the engines of an oceanliner, and is highly confident in his physical power over the ship's engines. However, when a weak but rich daughter of an industrialist in the steel business refers to him as a "filthy beast," Yank undergoes a crisis of identity. He leaves the ship and wanders into Manhattan, only to find he does not belong anywhere; neither with the socialites on Fifth Avenue, nor with the labor organizers on the waterfront. Finally he is reduced to seeking a kindred being in the gorilla in the zoo and dies in the animal's embrace.
[edit] Themes
The Hairy Ape displays O'Neill's social concerns and his belief that the capitalist system persecuted the working man. The industrial environment is presented as toxic and dehumanizing; the world of the rich, superficial and dehumanized. Yank has also been interpreted as representative of the human condition, alienated from nature by his isolated consciousnes, unable to find belonging in any social group or environment.
[edit] Production history
The Hairy Ape was first produced by the Provincetown Players in 1922. The production, directed and designed by Robert Edmond Jones, was praised for its use of expressionistic set design and staging techniques, and was transferred to a theatre on Broadway. Louis Wohlheim became famous for his interpretation of Yank. A 1944 film version starred William Bendix and Susan Hayward. Later notable productions include Peter Stein's 1986 revival, and a postmodern multimedia interpretation by the Wooster Group in 1996, with Willem Defoe playing the protagonist.
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