The Hairy Ape
Ashmore Fine Arts Auditorium, Pensacola Junior College
February 22-24 and February 29-March 2, 2008
Director:
Rodney Whatley
Technical Director:
Bob Gandrup
Assistant Director:
Roxanne Johnson Costumer:
Edee Green
Movement Coach: Caroline Norman
Percussion Director: Ashley Platts
Props and Masks: Sarah Setta
Yank
- William Thompson Paddy - Mario D. Cieri Long/Man 1 - Steven McHaley Man 2/Guard - Ricky Terry Man 3 -
Gavin Parmley Man 4 - Michael Miles Man 5 - Jonathon Harris
Written by Eugene O’Neill in the 1920s, The Hairy Ape is one of
the more unique plays I have seen in local theater. The Pensacola
Jr. College Theatre Department, directed by Rodney Whatley, opens a
six-performance run of The Hairy Ape tonight in PJC’s Ashmore Fine
Arts Auditorium. I had never seen this expressionistic drama before
a recent rehearsal and I was not prepared for the emotional impact
it carries, nor the ingenious manner in which Whatley has approached
this material.
The central character is a brutish everyman named Yank. Early on,
Yank is secure in his position of primacy as foreman of an engine
room crew aboard an ocean liner. He rules this gritty, narrow
universe with an iron hand, but when a refined female passenger,
horrified by his appearance and demeanor, calls him a “filthy
beast,” Yank’s self-image and entire concept of reality are turned
upside down.
Yank is played by PJC student William Thompson, and as I watched
a recent rehearsal, I was amazed that this young actor could so
thoroughly draw me into his character’s tortured psyche. Thompson
offers us a Yank who is aggressive, angry, alienated and, perhaps
most important, eminently sympathetic in his vulnerability.
The Hairy Ape is at once highly symbolic and starkly realistic;
laser-beam focused and as broad as society itself. O’Neill’s
exaggeration of social archetypes penetrates to their very marrow.
The play calls for audible rhythms to drive home its themes, and
Whatley has expanded this concept considerably, challenging his cast
to perform frequent percussive accompaniments within scenes –
sequences that are somewhat reminiscent of the popular group
“Stomp.”
What is fascinating about this group percussion – whether it’s
the clang-bang rhythm of the workers stoking the ship’s engines, or
the subtle, round-robin slap of a card game – is that the cast
carries out their actions as if the percussive elements were not
present. These beats seem to represent the rhythms of life that can
imprison us, that can hold us in a stifling place simply because we
are so unaware of their presence and power. In The Hairy Ape all the
characters are confined in one way or another, but it is Yank who
has decided he must rage against the invisible walls that threat to
suffocate him.
His quest takes him to the streets of Manhattan, where he suffers
both the physical pain of being pummeled and jailed by the police
and, even worse, the emotional pain of rejection and utter
indifference.
Yank finally winds up at the zoo, where he has a deeply poignant
“conversation” with a real ape. This is perhaps the most powerful
moment in the script, and Thompson’s strongest work in the
production as he drives home the sheer depths of Yank’s emptiness.
We see a man reaching inside, one last time, for that “something”
that’s got to be there for anything else to matter.
I was impressed with the consistent energy displayed by the
entire 12-member cast. Notable in supporting roles are Mario Cieri
as Paddy, the play’s older character who must was eloquent in early
monologues; and Steven McHaley as Long, a fervent young socialist
who seldom finds the “off” switch for his soapbox rhetoric.
This is powerful theatre that drives home its message with a bang
– literally and symbolically.
