Hassiem Muhammad, Adam Petherbridge, Harrison Tipping, Jon Beavers, and Nayib Felix Photo by Carol Rosegg

Charlie Corcoran's scenic design at first looks minimalist: three narrow metal bunk beds, period, below deck on a lavish ocean liner. There a crew of stokers yammer, drink, sing, and engage in the sort of good-natured roistering you'd expect of a blue-collar assemblage of testosterone. Significantly, O'Neill doesn't even bother to name them, except for two: Paddy (John Keating) is older, worn out, spouting fond memories of the good old days on wind-powered ships, while Yank (Jon Beavers) is less animated and more powerful than his crewmates, seeing himself as their unofficial leader. The others (Adam Petherbridge, Ariyan Kassam, Hassiem Muhammad, and Harrison Tipping) ply a variety of accents as they respond to Yank's harangues, which are frequent and, for 1922, mighty profane. Mostly, he hates the above-deck elites, though he's had little to no actual contact with them. But he's proud: He moves the ship. He has a place in the world, or so he thinks.

Turns out there's a lot more to Corcoran's set. The main deck drops from the flies, and finds Mildred (Elizabeth Teeter) and her disagreeable aunt (Joanna Glushak) indulging in their favorite pastime, arguing. Mildred, the clearly spoiled daughter of a steel tycoon, nonetheless has some concern for the lower classes, and is manifesting it by touring the stokehole. Corcoran's set changes again–it will also depict a union hall, Fifth Avenue, and the Bronx Zoo–and Mildred, unprepared for the squalor of below decks and the uncouth fury of Yank, calls him a "filthy beast" (but not a "hairy ape," though that's how he hears it), then faints.

Here's where the O'Neill-ness of the play kicks in. He's looking at Yank's mental deterioration from being disrespected by an unattainable female, and the social and capitalistic forces that landed him in that furnace. Brutish and uneducated, he has little recourse but to rail about class warfare and seek avenues of revenge. He tours Fifth Avenue with a sympathetic buddy, where he accosts a group of churchgoers, awkwardly represented here by an ensemble in black robes and silver masks, and lands in what would have then been called the jug. In a cell smaller than the cages ICE proffered at Alligator Alcatraz, he commiserates with fellow prisoners while dominating the conversation. At a meeting of the real-life Industrial Workers of the World, or Wobblies, he proposes blowing up Mildred's father's steel mill and is booted out on suspicion of being a government spy. Finally, at the gorilla cage in the Bronx, he converses and points out his commonalities with, yes, a hairy ape, with devastating results. The guy can't catch a break.

The not un-simian Louis Wolheim was the original hairy ape. Beavers, making his New York debut, is, first of all, not hairy and quite nice to look at, but what the hell. He employs a period-accurate New York accent, "youse guys" and such, and attacks the demanding role with great force and energy. I just wish he'd vary it a little more. He barrels through scenes like James Cagney on speed, and his delivery needs more notes, more changes of mood. The challenge for any actor is to make Yank both sympathetic and repellent; with Beavers, the latter prevails.

It's such a dominant role, right down to Michael Gottlieb's spotlight often framing Beavers, that the other actors haven't much chance to make an impression. But Keating, that sturdy Irish Rep veteran, finds the wistful lyricism in Paddy; and Glushak, with one scene, is a veritable Margaret Dumont (look her up, kids) of haughty privilege.

Ciarán O'Reilly directs for vigorous action, with perhaps more of Yank downstage facing the audience than necessary, and Ryan Rumery and Florian Staab's sound design (Rumery also composed the music) is excellent; those below-deck whistles and engines feel frighteningly real. A lifelong O'Neill addict, I'd somehow missed The Hairy Ape up till now, and I'm grateful to Irish Rep for resurrecting it in what's probably a very faithful, respectful rendering. But the existential anxieties of the lower strata have been explored so often since, and Yank's fulminations don't ring as powerfully as they must have when O'Neill was first forcing audiences to confront class realities they'd previously ignored. It's a worthy staging, but among this great playwright's many creations, this one sports more cobwebs than usual.