The Hairy Ape

Written in 1921 by Nobel Prize-winning playwright Eugene O'Neill, this is one of his most well-known and classic plays, written as social commentary on the gap between rich and poor. Hailed by critics as one of the best renditions of O’Neill’s expressionist drama, this is a story about class and identity, and a story of a man struggling to remain “human” as he works in an ocean liner.

• “This isn't a play; it's a piece of art, played out over a crisp ninety minutes. It's a painting, or a puppet show. You don't see it, so much as sink into it.”

-- David Freedlander, The Daily Beast

• “...While this production may work most effectively as a visual feast (just wait until you see how the closed set opens to embrace the Armory's walls), it also gives full due to the patterns of O'Neill's language..”

-- Ben Brantley, The New York Times

• “It's such an epic vision of the piece, the role of the "ape" could have gone to King Kong. In this case, it actually went to someone who manages to seem almost as big: the ferocious Bobby Cannavale, who breathes fire into the drama's central heap-of-clay character..”

-- Peter Marks, The Washington Post

Stars: Bobby Canavale, David Costabile, Becky Ann Baker, and Catherine Combs

Director: Richard Jones

Writer: Eugene O'Neill