Ensemble Theatre to Open O'Neill's "The Hairy Ape"

CLEVELAND HEIGHTS, OH -- Cleveland Critics Circle award-winning director Ian Wolfgang Hinz will again take on a Eugene O’Neill masterpiece when he directs Ensemble Theatre’s production of The Hairy Ape this month.

Opening November 17, the play is about a hard-working man, Yank, who has a bit of a crisis of identity when confronted by the daughter of a rich industrialist.

“O’Neill is asking the questions many of us in our polarized society are asking,” Hinz said. “Mainly, ‘where do we belong?’”

Hinz won the award for Best Direction for Ensemble’s 2013 production of O’Neill’s The Iceman Cometh.

While working in the engine room of an ocean liner, Yank is confronted by a socialite, Mildred, who refers to Yank as a “filthy beast.” This ignites Yank’s sudden identity crisis and class awareness, sparking a journey as he travels to New York City’s 5th Avenue to find a place for himself among the city’s elite class. Rejected at every turn, Yank’s attempt to avenge himself among the Bourgeois, becomes the slow decline of a man unable to break class ranks.

Like all of O’Neill’s plays, The Hairy Ape – first produced in 1922 – touches on themes of the human condition and the struggles of the men and women who work hard to build a nation, while being exploited by the upper class.

“While Yank is shoveling coal on a ship, he could just as easily have been a steel worker in Cleveland,” Hinz said. “These themes that are so prevalent in O’Neill’s plays – like The Hairy Ape – reflect society’s classism then and still today.”

The Hairy Ape opens November 17 and closes December 10 at Ensemble Theatre, 2843 Washington Blvd. in Cleveland Heights.

For tickets or more information, call the box office at 216-321-2930, or visit www.EnsembleTheatreCLE.org.