New-York tribune., 1922-03-10
The New PLAY
BY Percy Hammond
''The Hairy Ape" Shows Eu-
gene O'NeiIl in a Bitter
and Interesting
Humor
TIM CAST

j
\ secretary of an Organization.
Harold McGcc
1t is a rotten world, Eugene O'Ncill
thinks. for the hairy apes. by hairy
apes ne means the ridiculous strong
men who serve the furnaces in steam
ships or in steel mills where arc forged
the toilers' prison bars. The futile
fellow with big disregard for every
thing but his own muscles To bring
it down to the particular hairy ape who
is the topic of Mr.. O'Neills newest
dramatic large, clustering. pugna-
cious employee who, cndeavoring
blindly to discover what it is all about,
finds himself in 8 fatal cul-de-s sac.
The above probably does not in the
least resembel what Mr. O'Neill thinks
about hairy apes. But it may serve
to begin report of last nights thor
oughly interesting fantasy at the
Provincctown Theater. Tho Hairy
Ape, known to his fellow stokers as
"Nank' is having a good time in the
first scene, domincering over his com
panions in the frcmcn's forecastle.
with pint Of liquor at hand and vast
vocabulary of opithets.
He is proud of the great strength
that manifests itself in coal shovel
ing and of the fact that il is his
skill and power that make the wheels
go round. Everything else is "tripo.'
His comfort in that pride. however. is
disturbed by the appearance Of q LADY
passenger from the first cabin, who,
visiting the engine room insults him
by calling him a filthy beast There
after he embarks upon the long and
precarious pleasures of hatred. trying
to find the young woman so that he
may Go her harm.
This lady is the daughter Of the
president of the Nazareth Steel Com
pany, and as an uplifter. has enjoyed
the morbid thrills of East Side social
work Her grandfather it may be,
was also hairy ape, but a successful
one, for he was q puddler in his youth.
Her grandmother smoked a clay pipe.
The avenger first seeks her on Fifth
Avenue on Sunday after church, and
he is arrested for interfering with
worshipper who is signalling bus.
Sent TO the Island, he learns from the
prisoners there of the I. w W, and he
determines that that organization shall
be the instrument of his onmity But
he is thrown out Of the l. w ". head
quarters when he applies for member
ship, being suspected as a spy; and at
length he finds himself in front Of a
cage at the Zoo, trying to make friends
with gorilla. He ends there, not ig
nobly, in the unbrotherly embrace OF
the beast, and his last words are;
Where do go from here?''
!: = i;
The Hairy Ape is played explicitly
and with every indication of the roles
characteristics by Louis Wolheim. 1t
is an admirable performance, though
monotonous at times with an endless
reiteration of such expletives as "Get
me-" The eight scenes into which the
7 play is divided are Elusive pictures of
q steamships stokehole, its promenade
deck, the island prison and other
points in the allegory. The most eff
fective, it seemed, is that OF Fifth
Avenue, where the pious rich, coming
from worship, are represented as man.
nikins with sinister false faces. "The
Hairy Ape" comes under the classi-
fcston of "interesting things" and it
is no doubt the best of the O'Neill
plays after Anna Christie.'