Interludes

THE HANGOVER REPORT – Jon Beavers is tremendous in the title role of Irish Rep’s visceral, stylish revival of Eugene O’Neill’s THE HAIRY APE

• By drediman
• October 9, 2026
• No Comments

Over at Irish Repertory Theatre, you’ll find a stylish, timely Off-Broadway revival of Eugene O’Neill’s bleak 1922 play The Hairy Ape. In short, the work chronicles the downward spiral of a ship stokehold worker (Yank), whose tirade against capitalist/modern society is inexplicably triggered by the ghostly sight of a pristinely-dressed high society girl in the grimy bowels of the ship, where he and his workmates are hard at work. On shore, he experiences an escalating sense of alienation as he is displaced time and time again in a world that is fast spinning out of his grasp and comprehension (does this ring a bell?).

Despite its increasing obscurity, director Ciarán O’Reilly knows this play well, having staged it for Irish Rep twenty years ago. The visual aesthetic of his muscular, meticulously blocked production — which is both faithful to the underlying play yet immediate and viscerally in the moment — is at once expressionistic and industrial. Aided by atmospheric sound design by Florian Staab and Ryan Rumery, as well as bold lighting by Michael Gottlieb, O’Reilly creates a parade of heightened, visually striking stage tableaus, terrifically capturing the hallucinatory, fever dream quality of O’Neill’s play, while fully keeping its satiric and tragic elements in sight. Suffice to say, the revival left me breathless and a bit disoriented.

As with any staging of The Hairy Ape, Irish Rep’s revival is dominated by Yank by way of actor Jon Beavers — in a tremendous New York stage debut — who portrays the character’s psychological decent with relentless, harrowing conviction. A hulking stage presence, Beavers — all no-holds-barred bruteness and brash defiance — takes the play by the horn with a highly physical and emotionally charged performance. The rest of the ensemble cast — including reliable Irish Rep usual suspect John Keating — is fully committed to O’Reilly’s stylized vision, morphing brilliantly, as needed, into the visual fabric of each scene.

HIGHLY RECOMMENDED

THE HAIRY APE
Off-Broadway, Play
Irish Repertory Theatre
1 hour 25 minutes (without an intermission)
Through November 15