Who Played Yank in The Hairy Ape

Yank is a role in The Hairy Ape that opened Off-Broadway in 2017.

Written in 1921 by Nobel Prize-winning playwright Eugene O’Neill, this iconic piece of expressionist drama is a searing social commentary of the divide between the rich and poor in the industrial age. This timeless story of class and identity gets a thrilling new life in a production by visionary director Richard Jones, who boldly reimagines his acclaimed staging at The Old Vic for the soaring Wade Thompson Drill Hall. Tony-nominated actor Bobby Cannavale stars as Yank, the unthinking laborer who embarks on a search for a sense of belonging in a world controlled by the wealthy. His journey from the bowels of a transatlantic ocean liner to the wealthy neighborhoods of New York society literally revolves around the audience like the conveyer belt of a larger machine, serving as a metaphor for the struggle between the working man and the industrial complex found at the heart of the play. This fresh approach creates an inventive and contemporary rallying cry addressed as much to our own gilded age as to O’Neill’s that rattles the cages of capitalism.