Five years after the RSC production of the musical Matilda opened, one memory is more vivid than any other: Bertie Carvel as the child-hating headmistress. Or, to be precise, the ape-like hand tucked backwards under the forearm that suggested that this woman was not only not all female, but not all human. In Richard Jones's stunning revival of Eugene O'Neill's 1922 play, Carvel, more subtly, transmits the animal inside.
His Yank is a tough furnace stoker on an American ocean liner. When the snobbish daughter of the ship's owner pulls rank on the officers and insists on being shown the men working in the hold, she's appalled by the crude sight of Yank working at full steam. She recoils, calling him a filthy beast.
What follows is a blunt criticism of America's class system and, more interestingly, the introspection of a brutish man. Before Yank is insulted, Carvel subtly hints with a scratch here, a roll of the shoulders there, at the ape within. It's a mesmerising performance of gorilla-like violence and vulnerability, much like the animal with whom the raging Yank has his final encounter.