If there is one Chicago theater company that I think would be a no-brainer fit with the kind of adventurous, text-transcending theatrical visions that the Goodman Theater has programmed in the terrific Eugene O’Neill Festival that I’ve been salivating about since the beginning of January, it would be the Hypocrites. I am an unabashed fan of this theater company and of it’s idiosyncratic Artistic Director, Sean Graney, who has gifted this city with many, many nights of one-of-a-kind theater over the past several years. So on paper, the Hypocrites taking on Eugene O’Neill’s The Hairy Ape, a classic of 1920’s American Expressionism about the dehumanizing effects of an industrial, materialistic society on the individual worker is like an e-Harmony match made in artistic heaven. So, although I really, really admired Graney’s production, currently at the O’Neill Festival till this Saturday, February 21, I felt ultimately, though, that my high expectations of this group, doing this text, was somewhat missed.
Feb 18
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