Playwright: Eugene O'Neill
At: The Hypocrites at Goodman
Theatre, 170 N. Dearborn
Phone: 312-443-3800; $12-$20
Runs through: Feb. 21
Estimations differ on the precise moment that we knew it was time for Mary Zimmerman to leave her artistic home in Chicago to seek a wider following. An early clue, however, was our awareness of motifs no longer startling to playgoers accustomed to yearly new projects from this imaginative director—"generic Zimmerman," if you will—but that would electrify audiences viewing these techniques for the first time throughout our country. Sean Graney may have reached that same turning point, if his interpretation of Eugene O'Neill's The Hairy Ape is any indication.
The scenic design, incorporating the Owen auditorium's triple-tiered architecture to suggest the various levels of a cruise ship ( and in doing so, making for obstructed sight-lines during the scenes played near the floor ) reflects one metaphor inherent in this 1921 drama: Yank, a stoker comfortable in his allotted status, loses his cosmological bearings after his universe is invaded by an ambiguous angel descended from the topside deck—a disruption rendering him a creature caught between stages of social evolution. But the themes that Graney claims as his focus in a playbill note are "the dehumanizing effects of industrialization," socialism's "failure to accommodate the emotional needs of the individual" and "philosophical anarchism"—concepts mandating such visceral spectacle as orchestrated percussion executed with coal shovels, and the International Workers Of The World membership depicted as prissy do-gooders holding a Bake Sale. And while the cellful of slithery prison inmates who engulf our hero in a literal snake pit are visually provocative, as is the casting of a 10-year-old child as Yank's final persecutor, garbing a cluster of robotic socialites in Warholesque disco drag is merely cute ( 1970s fashions—tee-hee-hee ) .
In the central role of Yank, Chris Sullivan conveys proletarian dignity from his initial manifesto, delivered in an industrial inferno, to his final act of despair ( endowed by Graney with more humanity than O'Neill permitted his protagonist ) . He is supported by stalwart, if underdeveloped, characterizations from a sturdy ensemble of company regulars. But a curious manifestation already observed at the Goodman's "global exploration" is the propensity of the American productions to utilize their texts as mere scenarios, relying instead on the visual and aural elements suggested thereby. If this international event leads to further cultural exchanges, then this Hairy Ape is tailor-made for performance before audiences in non-English-speaking countries.
