Ensemble Theatre’s ‘The Hairy Ape’ powerful but not poetic Bob Abelman Cleveland Jewish News, The News Herald, The Morning Journal Member, International Association of Theatre Critics By the time he wrote “The Hairy Ape” in 1921, Eugene O’Neill had tired of the literary naturalism of his earlier work. He was now venturing into a form of expressionism that inflates human pathos by layering characters’ speech with visceral and vivid poetry. It’s this poetry that an otherwise solid Ensemble Theatre production of this play mismanages. For more of this article, go to www.clevelandjewishnews.com/columnists/.