July 24 - August 9, 2009
at the Manny Fried Playhouse
 for
the 2009 Buffalo "infringement" Festival
THE HAIRY APE
by Eugene O'Neill
"The Hairy Ape
could easily lend itself to radical propaganda, and it is somewhat surprising
that it has not already been used for this purpose."
-FBI REPORT ON EUGENE O'NEILL, 1922
THREE STARS!!!
"...bold, passionate, and wildly
experimental."
--Jason Clark, BUFFALO NEWS
7/28/09
click
here to read this review
For the fifth-annual Buffalo
"infringement" Festival, Subversive Theatre was proud to present
our own wildly experimental perversion of Eugene O'Neill's wonderfully class
conscious black comedy THE HAIRY APE.
This off-beat one-act play -- substantially more
surreal and more overtly political than any of O'Neill's other works -- follows the half comic misadventures of a boisterous working man
known only as "The Yank" who
is eager to kill off his bourgeois oppressors but just can't quite figure out how to get his
extermination campaign underway!
Adding a turn-of-the-century circus theme to
O'Neill's in-your-face drama, our rendition featured a dizzying array of
presentational styles -- juggling, puppetry, mime, movement, mask work, and even a live found-sound
orchestra.
Each performance began as Ringmaster "Bartholomew
Wigglesworth" of the "Burn 'Em & Bail 'Em Circus"
-- surrounded by a bevy of jugglers, acrobats, puppeteers, peanut vendors, and
corset-clad beauties -- stepped forward to tell "The Tale of the
Insufficiently Class-Conscious American Worker Who Just Made Things Worse for
Himself . . . or The Hairy Ape!"
Using intensely stylized movement to enact the play's
graphic depiction of class distinction and the exploitation of the toiling
ship workers as well as a series of elemental props -- such as scarves,
staffs, benches, and fabrics -- to symbolically conjure up many scenes and
special effects, our version of THE HAIRY APE
made for a very daring exploration into the world of experimental theatre that
both dazzled and bemused thronging crowds in the sweltering heat of the Manny
Fried Playhouse in the height of summer.
Through this production, Subversive Theatre also
opened the doors of our venue to other "infringement" Festival
events. All in all, we were proud to host over fifteen separate
productions in the space of just eleven short days!
Here's a quick rundown on the many, many artists who
brought THE HAIRY APE to life:
 
|
DIRECTOR
Kurt Schneiderman*
CONCEPT DEVELOPMENT
Kurt Schneiderman* & Brian Zybala*
THE CAST
The Ringmaster . . . . . Brian Zybala*
The Yank . . . . . . . Patrick Cameron
Mildred & others . . Candice Kogut*
Paddy & others . . . . . . Paul O'Hern
Aunt & others . . . . . . . . Betsy Bittar
Long & others . . . Anthony Orlowski
IWW Speaker & others . John Vines
Jailbird & others . . . Drew McCabe*
Prostitute & others . . . Sarah Brown
Monkey & others . Monica Karwan*
The Hairy Ape . Leonard Ziolkowski
Puppetering . . . . Mark Tattenbaum*
MUSIC & FOLEY EFFECTS
Patrick Cain & Gabriel Gutierrez
DESIGNERS
Costumes . . . . . . Paul Stephenson*
Lights . . . . . . . . . Craig Freudenthal
Set . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Hank Schmidt
Movement . . . . . Monica Karwan*
Stage Combat . . . . Candice Kogut*
Poster & Web Kurt Schneiderman*
Poster Illustrator . . Matt Clabeaux*
Backdrop Illustrator Melissa Grosse
Puppets . . . . . . Mark Tattenbaum*
THE CREW
Stage Manager . . . . . . Rachel Zeller
Mask Crafting . . . Franklin LaVoie*
Costume Assistant . . . Nicole Bagay
Set Painting . . . . . . . Jessica Fialko
House Management . . Tom Scahill*
BACKDROP PAINTERS
Michael Fanelli*, Jessica Fialko,
Franklin LaVoie*, Hank Schmidt,
Kurt & Jeanette Schneiderman*,
Rachel Zeller, Brian Zybala*
THEATRE SET-UP
Michael Fanelli*, Tom Izard*,
Kurt Schneiderman* |
|
