The Hairy Ape
2013; Penn State University Press; Volume: 34; Issue: 1 Linguagem: Inglês
10.5325/eugeoneirevi.34.1.0126
ISSN2161-4318
Autores ResumoHidden in the bowels of London Bridge in a musty, vaulted tunnel under platform 1, the Southwark Playhouse is the perfect setting for Eugene O'Neill's The Hairy Ape. More catacomb than performance space, the intimate 150-seat theater feels as if it is dripping with history, much like the sweaty stones and bricks that keep the Thames at bay. Dim lights and steam make it difficult for me to find my seat next to the jagged stage that is a makeshift theater-in-the round. Thanks to Tom Gibbon's captivating sound design, a steady electronic hum serves as an undercurrent to the action that will soon unfold. I feel as if I have descended into Yank's cavernous coal-stained world, if not Dante's inferno itself. But why O'Neill in London? And why, of all plays, The Hairy Ape?Director Kate Budgen described this project as “a pure labour of love,” one that took about two years to cultivate: from her first reading of the script, to acquiring funding from an arts council, to workshopping ideas, to assembling her creative team and, finally, securing the Southwark space. Other than a couple of fringe productions, The Hairy Ape has not been performed in London for twenty-five years. London audiences were first introduced to The Hairy Ape in 1931 with Paul Robeson's critically acclaimed performance (directed by James Light), though it closed after just five nights, due to the strains of the demanding role on Robeson's health. London would have to wait nearly half a century for Peter Stein's 1987 revival (in German) when his company, the Berlin Schaubühne, played at the National Theatre for one week. In some ways, then, the Southwark Playhouse production was the first fully British Hairy Ape. It was well worth the wait.Given the modified theater-in-the-round (which resembled a cross more than a circle), the audience was wrapped around the action, and our physical proximity enabled an intimacy with these characters. Working in a different direction from the 1922 Provincetown Players' expressionist design, Jean Chan's sparse set easily transformed into all eight different scenes. At times fragmentary set pieces were used to suggest place, as, for example, when several door-sized metal pieces of cage were wheeled in for the prison scene. Mostly, however, Chan wisely allowed the tomb-like space to underscore the raw conditions of working-class life. With such physical proximity—we can see sweat dripping from both the walls and the actors' bodies—the production put the focus on the fine acting of this ensemble cast, each of whom took on several parts (Stephen Bisland, Emma King, Gary Lilburn, James McGregor, Mitchell Mullen, Patrick Myles, Lizzie Roper, Bill Ward, and Mark Weinman; see fig. 1). The stokers on board with Yank represent many facets of immigrant and working-class life (from Irish to British, to native Brooklyn), and Budgen cast both young and grey-haired actors to portray these roles.Budgen's fresh and energizing interpretation also achieved the difficult balance between The Hairy Ape's naturalism and its expressionism. O'Neill himself once said that The Hairy Ape defied categorization and seemed to “run the whole gamut from extreme naturalism to extreme expressionism—with more of the latter than the former.” During the rehearsal process, Budgen realized that a merely naturalistic approach wasn't working and adopted more experimental tactics. Movement director Lucy Cullingford guided the actors with experimental exercises, and the production began to click. This was particularly visible during the coal-shoveling scene in the stokehole, executed with power by Yank (played by the electrifying Bill Ward) and company. Part dance, part trance, part ritual, the synchronized coal-shoveling utilized mechanistic movement, stomping, and even yelling to convey the paradoxical horror and satisfaction of working in the innards of the ship, where sweating men, streaked with coal dust, perform this primal—yet hauntingly beautiful—task. With light cast upward from a grate-covered hole below, this scene (designed by Richard Howell) captured O'Neill's desire for “strange, awkward, swinging rhythm” and “the brazen clang of the furnace doors … the grating, teeth-gritting grind of steel against steel, of crunching coal … [and] the monotonous throbbing heat of the engines.” This stylized movement evoked a Brechtian gestus, a physical gesture or visual symbol of the play's central message, in embodying both the alienation of a working-class Everyman battered about by modernity and Yank's relentless quest to belong.When we leave the hellish inferno for the sparkle of Fifth Avenue in scene 5, the notion of “the civilized” gets turned on its head. Here the wealthy appear more grotesque than the supposedly primal stokers. Transforming from the denizens of the working class to Fifth Avenue bourgeoisie, company members moved stylistically like two-dimensional puppets, mechanically uttering their lines in an expressionist choral refrain. To underscore the vacuity of Fifth Avenue “adornments of extreme wealth” and those who pursue them, the actors carried mannequin heads, which functioned as surrogate masks. While O'Neill did not write this scene with masks, he was experimenting with them in other works, and, as Arthur and Barbara Gelb have pointed out, the Provincetowner's costumer, Blanche Hays, suggested their use in 1922, though they were never used. In the Southwark interpretation of this scene, the logic of capital is interrogated, as Yank and Long (played winningly by Mark Weinman) gaze upon these moneyed creatures with horrified fascination, much like spectators at a zoo. Who is more human, the scene asks? The hairy ape, as Mildred calls Yank, or the faceless capitalists?As Yank, Bill Ward showed remarkable range and physicality. His movements were both ape-like and human, whether he was thumping his chest like an alpha gorilla, strutting with bravado like a Bowery street-fighter, or challenging his coworkers to physical feats. His actions seemed to erupt from the core of his soul, especially when he lashed out with volcanic rage at Mildred (played unevenly by the porcelain-white Emma King), who dares to call him ape. Seeing Ward's Yank made me grasp the similarities between this stoker and Matt Burke of “Anna Christie” (which was written the same year) and brought to mind Jude Law's captivating performance of Burke at the Donmar Warehouse in 2011. As played by Ward, Yank is a Neanderthal Everyman seeking his humanity—a chance to belong. In his odyssey to prove he is not a hairy ape, he ironically winds up in the gorilla cage at the zoo. Yank's final monologue is hauntingly simple, with merely the sound of the apes growling and roaring to suggest the mise-en-scène. By now, Yank is on his knees, delivering his final lines like a confessional to the gorillas that will soon crush him to death. Budgen told me that she enlisted ape specialist Peter Elliott (who has worked on films such as Gorillas in the Mist and Where the Wild Things Are) to work with the company, and this influence was evident in Ward's and the entire company's portrayals (see fig. 2). When I spoke with Ward following his final performance, he appeared utterly exhausted, and I understood why Robeson was hospitalized after only five nights.The Hairy Ape was a rare and thrilling evening, one that sadly can never be repeated, for Southwark Playhouse will relocate to another space at the end of the year to make way for the redevelopment of the London Bridge Station. The Southwark production also served as an intriguing counterpoint to the widely publicized Long Day's Journey Into Night (also reviewed in this volume), which was running at the very same time in the West End. In spite of the fact that The Hairy Ape is often perceived as one of O'Neill's early—and, some would argue, uneven—experimental works, this play nonetheless outshone the blockbuster across the Thames. Keep an eye open for director Kate Budgen. Given her love of the playwright, we may find her reviving yet another O'Neill play sometime soon.
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