Photo Coverage: Inside Opening Night of THE HAIRY APE, with Bobby Cannavale

Park Avenue Armory presents a bold staging of Eugene O'Neill's iconic American drama The Hairy Ape, directed by Oliver Award-winner Richard Jones and starring Tony nominee Bobby Cannavale.

Activating the industrial-scale architecture of the Wade Thompson Drill Hall, the production brings new dimension to the classic work, which follows a laborer on his journey from the bowels of an ocean liner to the New York of the Roaring Twenties. The staging adds a fresh and inventive approach by placing the action on a stage that revolves around the audience like the conveyor belt of a large machine, serving as a metaphor for the struggle between the working man and the industrial complex found at the heart of the play.

Jones' acclaimed production was mounted at the Old Vic in London in the fall of 2015 as a proscenium stage presentation and is being radically reimagined for the Armory's space. Performances begin March 25 and run through April 22, 2017.

Written in 1922 by Nobel Prize-winner Eugene O'Neill, The Hairy Ape is a searing social commentary on the divide and friction between the rich and poor in the Gilded Age. The story follows the journey of Yank, played by Bobby Cannavale, a laborer who revels in his status as the strongest stoker on a transatlantic ocean liner. When Yank is deemed a "filthy beast" by the daughter of a rich steel merchant, he experiences an awakening of consciousness that leads him on a journey through the worlds of both the disenfranchised working class and wealthy society of New York.

Photo Credit: Linda Lenzi

Rose Byrne