THE HAIRY APE
PARK AVENUE ARMORY - NEW YORK
Sarah Angliss: Composition/sound design
Stewart Laing: scenic design
Eugene O’Neill’s expressionist masterpiece from 1922 uses the overwhelming sounds of the engine room on an ocean liner to explore dehumanisation and the shock of modernity.
Written in 1922, The Hairy Ape tells the tells the story of Yank, a labourer who revels in his status as the strongest stoker on a transatlantic liner. When Yank is called a ‘filthy beast’ by the overbred daughter of a steel merchant, he experiences an awakening of consciousness that leads him on a journey through the wealthy neighbourhoods and disenfranchised underbelly of New York society.
Example sound cue
The score lives somewhere between sound and music – and it encompasses sound design as well as music cues. Sarah wanted to create something experiential, where the audience felt awstruck and overwhelmed by the sounds of the steam ship as it creaks, groans and slips on its chains. She also wanted the fabric of the ship to sound almost animalistic, presaging the dreaded final scene of the play.
The drill hall of The Armory is a huge void – large enough for the set designer Stuart Laing to reimagine the set as a doughnut which circled raked seating in the centre of the space. This set turned slowly throughout the show to bring different elements of the set to the audience. It put the audience at the epicentre of an intense narrative – and made them keenly aware of the vastness of the Drill Hall itself.
The Drill Hall was highly reverberant. Sarah was able to exploit the natural acoustic of the space to heighten the sense of foreboding – the feeling you were hearing something threatening but indisinct, perhaps from the far end of a mighty ship.
Directed by Richard Jones
Movement by Aletta Collins
Lighting by Mimi Jordan Sherrin