The Hairy Ape by Kate Budgen (review)

Hidden 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.

Fig. 1.

Emma King (left) and Bill Ward in Southwark Playhouse’s production of The Hairy Ape. Photo by Chris Kinneston.

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...