The Hairy Ape:

Photo: Glen McIntosh.  Louis Lemire and Donnie Laflamme.

Eugene O’Neil’s The Hairy Ape, written in 1921, appears extremely modern with its discussion, in Act II, about labour unions, the exploitation of the working class and the suppression of left wing discourses foretelling the Joseph McCarthy era even though the play appeared long before that communist scare decimated the artistic community in the USA. It even foretells the highly stylized visual techniques Fritz Lang’s Metropolis, created later in 1927, where the exhausted workers are transformed into automats as they stoke the engines of the Commercial liner in the first scenes of the play. Constructivist stage structures meet an expressionist atmosphere as the setting reflects the frustration, the anger and even the rage of the men toiling in the bowels of that huge commercial liner.

Director Lisa Zanyk has choreographed moments of the play that take us back to those episodes of silent film the dirty working body is fore grounded against the gentile dainty creatures of the upper classes who mimes as much as she talks, when she comes to see those men as “filthy beasts”. Thus Yank, the principal protagonist in this dramatic comedy, sinks deeper and deeper into his raging depths, coming close to his primitive origins as he feels more and more alienated from New York Society and those whom he assumes are making fun of him.

The plays shock-filled opening takes place in the overheated, cramped stokehole of an ocean liner. making its way towards America. The firemen are shovelling coal, lifting hot material, grunting, sweating, singing , banging pipes. Their efforts are transformed into a dance-like orchestration of all those sweaty bodies whose roaring fragmented speech is swallowed up by the vibrations of the ship’s motors. Lisa Zanyk’s rhythmic corporeal work with the actors was very effective here and Matt Smith’s well-placed sound scape added much to the effect of that scene, as well as to the production as a whole. Amidst that cacophony of voices, comes the roar of Yank, the tough guy who appears to be the most influential and admired member of the team. The gruff, growling tone becomes nearly epic as Yank (Donnie Laflamme) sings the praises of the industrial worker and how he is at the forefront of l the construction and growth of this society dominated by the rich . . When Miss Mildred (Laura Hall) , the daughter of chairman of the board of directors of this steamship line, comes down to that lower level with her aunty, “a gray lump of dough touched up with rouge” , to see how the other half lives. Mildred appears as the white, pure, clean untouchable, immaculate upper class presence drained of all its vital energy , like a doll, pasty and artificial. Yank is briefly fascinated but quickly humiliated by this sterilized presence that appears to make fun of him. In a state of boiling rage, he vows to get back at her some day. The battle lines are drawn.

Somehow that particular scene did not work. The contrast was obvious but Laura Hall as Miss Mildred let her performance veer off into caricature and she lost any provocative energy she might have had. She floated in her own childish space. She did not taunt him, she did not provoke him, and she was a silly, embarrassing, empty headed girl who moved like a vain teenager looking at herself in the mirror, a child who could not possibly have any effect on Yank. Her real horror at seeing and hearing Yank’s string of profanity does not come across at all and thus Yank’s anger and humiliation are not really justified by her actions. An important moment in the play had failed to make its emotional impact. It was just laughable.

Later , there was another weak moment. In scene V when Yank and Long, played by a very strong Matt Smith, the Union rep and articulate defender of the new communist doctrine among the workers, find themselves on Fifth Avenue in New York. The set and props were minimalist so that the actors created context and in this street scene. Fifth Avenue representatives of the pricey and genteel shops and ostentatious wealth of the New York upper crust was represented by actors dressed in white finery, but strolling like mummies down the street as machines lacking any emotion. This too was captured as a form of collective choreography showing the human sensibility of the upper classes crushed by super consumerism. Emphasis on the idea of alienation of the two ship workers was at the forefront however, the choreography of the Fifth Avenue crowd was too sloppy and failed to sustain the tension. It was “silly”, where as It should have been a lot more precise, every moment tightly controlled by the director in order to make the contrast between the Urban rich and the enraged workers a lot more powerful.

There is an excellent dramatic moment where the naturalism of Yank’s dialogue and Laflamme’s performance connect with the corporeal performances and stylized speech of his fellow Union members in the offices of the IWW (Industrial Workers of the World). Yank comes to get his papers but he misunderstands the idea of the Union and thinks he is being hired as an activist to pose bombs, giving vent to his anger against the ruling class. The way the director orchestrates that clash of styles was exciting. Laflamme’s performance slowly grows from that of a polite and then eager worker to a sceptical and then raging redresser of working class rights. Kevin Reid as the Union secretary hit the right tone with his strong , slightly ironic voice and his flowing sometimes overly pointed artistic gestures that sent him off to an imaginary world, completely away from the anger that was boiling inside Yank. The alienation grows even stronger until the appearance of the real “hairy ape”, a rather rag tag creature that could have been a figment of Yank’s imagination if we had not heard the cracking of bones over the loud speakers. The reworked ending, bordering on the ridiculous, was a definite mistake on their part, even if it was meant to correct the site lines in the room of the Carleton House.

This is a historical event in Ottawa Theatre because The Hairy Ape has never been seen in this city. However , it is clear that actor Donnie Laflamme’s tortured performance burning with rage and violence, his portrait of a distorted mind, overflowing with energy, provides the backbone of this company’s stage adventure with O’Neil. Laflamme propelled the production into O’Neil’s world of heightened reality. However, the play did pose many problems, given its mixture of theatrical styles which incorporate the encounter of politics and a reflex ion on the state of the human being . If nothing else, the work holds its own within the general body of work done by Chamber Theatre Hintonburg and it is a chance to see one of O’Neil’s first plays, if only to become aware of the great diversity of his work.

The Hairy Ape a production of the Chamber Theatre Hintonburg plays at the Carleton Tavern, April 2,3,4,8.9.10.11.17.18

Written by Eugene O’Neil

Produced  and directed by Lisa Zany and Donnie Laflamme

Soundscape: Matt Smith

Costume and design: Donna Bourgeault

Cast:

Donnie Laflamme Yank

Louis Lemire Paddy

Matt Smith Long

Laura Hall Mildred

Ellen Manchee her aunt

Kevin Reid The Secretary