Bertie Carvel stars as Yank in Eugene O'Neill's 1922 impressionistic play about class and alienation . . . .
“Filthy Beast!”
Mildred Douglas
Richard Jones’ production of Eugene O’Neill’s The Hairy Ape is a stylish affair full of arresting images. I was thankful that I had seen Southwark Playhouse’s production of the same play in 2012 because the accents of the multi-national stokers on the transatlantic liner are especially hard to decipher. Even Bertie Carvel whose diction is as clear as a ship’s bell is saddled with the deep Brooklyn accent so foreign to British ears. The Cockney trade unionist Long (Callum Dixon) is decipherable, as is Steffan Rhodri’s lyrical drunken Irishman, Paddy.
The play opens in a yellow container reminding me of one of Shunt‘s productions set on pop up sites in transport containers. The opening image is a dark sculpture, a powerful mass of heaving bodies against the bright yellow container that gets the black coal dust on it as the men come into contact with the walls. The play has many of these wonderful images, black and yellow and worthy of display in a gallery of modern but not abstract art.
Apart from these men, is the lone figure of a man shaped like a gorilla, his pronounced arse resting on the metal table, his massive shoulders hunched forward and his muscular arms hanging down braced on his knees like a drama student on an early exercise to take on the physical characteristics of a monkey at the zoo. He folds his arms round his body and scratches repeatedly at his armpits. We are as close as we can get to man aping a gorilla. This is Robert Smith or Yank (Bertie Carvel) and his stage presence is riveting. He swings from the overhead bars in case we had failed to grasp the visual simian analogy.
Maybe the unintelligibility of what he says is a part of the director’s plan for us to realize the Darwinian origins of this man. We cut to the deck of the boat under a backdrop of Douglas Steel. I muse about how almost a hundred years later Douglas Steel is standing up to the influx of cheap imports of steel produced in China? Here is the very spoilt Mildred (Rosie Sheehy), daughter of the steel magnate arguing with her aunt chaperone. At her request, Mildred is taken down to the engine room of the ship by the Second Engineer (Nicholas Karimi) where she comes face to face with Yank and hysterically calls him a “filthy beast”. She then swoons and is rescued by the ship’s officer.
Mildred can make no connection between her father’s wealth and the labour of the stokers. Yank is confused and upset at her reaction to him. The scene set in 5th Avenue where Yank and Long are on leave and in New York they see the rich parade out of church. In the shop window is a fur coat made out of monkey fur. These upper classes wear masks and hats, the women have yellow shoes and furs. They break into a Charleston, epitomizing the idle rich but Yank gets arrested after fighting with one of them and ends up in prison where he is told about the Industrial Workers of the World political organization.
On his release Yank visits the printing headquarters of the IWW. This is another opportunity for a startling set, co-ordinated 1920s workers and white bookshelves with piles of little red books hot off the press. Yank’s sense of alienation is complete when even this organization, designed to help the oppressed, reject his approach to them, suspecting he’s a spy and hounding him.
Finally alone and cast out, Yank seeks understanding at the zoo from the gorilla colony. Bertie Carvel’s singular performance embraces both the aggressive masculinity of Yank but also his fragility as he seeks to make sense of his place in this world precipitating his tragic end.
If you are coming anew to this O’Neill play, I’d recommend an understanding of the scenes in order to get the most out of the stunning visuals and physicality of Bertie Carvel’s wonderful performance as the man caught in inhumanity.
Production Notes
The Hairy Ape
Written by Eugene O’Neill
Directed by Richard Jones
Cast
Starring:
Christopher Akrill
Adam Burton
Charlie Cameron
Okorie Chukwu
Buffy Davis
Phil Hill
Elan James
Nicholas Karimi
Ben Lee
Oliver Llewellyn-Jenkins
Luke Murphy
Creatives
Director: Richard Jones
Designer: Stewart Laing
Choreography: Aletta Collins
Lighting Designer:
Mimi Jordan Sherin
Sound Designer: Sarah Angliss
Information
Running Time: One hour and 30 minutes without an interval
Closed: 21st November 2015
Theatre:
Old Vic
The Cut
Waterloo
London SE1 8NB
Tube/Rail : Waterloo
Telephone: 0344 871 7628
Website: oldvictheatre.com
Reviewed by Lizzie Loveridge
at the Old Vic
on 2nd November 2015