|
SHEFFIELD THEATRES present: THE ELEPHANT MAN
by BERNARD POMERANCE Directed by ELLIE JONES
HACKNEY EMPIRE
25 – 29 March 2008 S
A review by David Hermann for EXTRA! EXTRA!
Ladies and Gentlemen, behold The Elephant Man! Shudder, as a skilled actor contorts into the pitiable physique of John Merrick limb by limb before your very eyes! Gasp, as a devoted cast drives this poignant study in human dignity towards its tragic conclusion in an awe-inspiring display of ensemble-work! Faint, Ladies and Gentlemen, as you realise that there are but a few days left to catch Sheffield Theatres’ high-end touring production at the Hackney Empire before it ends its hugely successful run at the Richmond Theatre for a few days in April! The Hackney Empire, ‘London’s most beautiful theatre’(Guardian), lies a stone’s throw from Whitechapel’s Royal London Hospital, where real life contrived the Elephant Man’s tragedy in 1886. The historical figure of Joseph Merrick, born in 1862, began to develop abnormal growths at the age of three. By the time his mother died, the boy, then twelve, was so heavily disfigured that his father’s second wife despised and rejected him. Eventually, the unhappy young man left home for a career as a sideshow-freak. In this capacity he was discovered by Frederick Treves, Lecturer in Anatomy at the London Hospital, who recognised Merrick’s condition as unique and arranged for him to take up permanent residence at the Hospital. It is at this point that Ellie Jones invites us to bear witness to Pomerance’s fictionalised version of events. Ellen Cairns’s set is a beautiful Victorian bandstand of almost incomprehensible geometry, raked simultaneously towards, and away from the audience to create the illusion of a larger space. Its glass roof is cracked in various places, as is the surrounding bone-white banister, emphasising the tragedy of the marred body at the center of the play while being subtle enough to remain interesting throughout the two hour performance. Forgive me for sounding tawdry, but it happens so rarely that design, sound and lighting align in the right way to forge a single atmosphere much bigger than their sum. When it does happen - and boy did it happen last night at the Empire - one can feel the air buzzing with the excitement of an audience that realises it is in the presence of effortless genius. As the house-lights fade and Dominic Haslam’s full-bodied compositions spill out into the auditorium in a gush of cello and violin; as Oliver Fenwick’s delicate, highly precise lighting washes over the stage in pale moonlight; as the first street-crowd bustles about in Ellen Cairns’s cleverly simplified Victorian attire, the audience is instantly, completely and helplessly drawn in. An enormous achievement considering that, at this point, not a single word has been uttered. The Elephant Man is streaked with more accomplished acting than you can shake your Stanislavski at, and attempting to do it justice here is too big a task. Nonetheless, a few outstanding achievements simply cannot go uncredited: Most noteworthy for obvious reasons is Joe Duttine’s portrayal of John Merrick (it was a long-held belief that Merrick’s first name was John, an error that originates from Sir Frederick Treves’s 1923 memoir The Elephant Man and other Reminiscences). In accordance with Bernard Pomerance’s stage-directions Duttine plays the heavily deformed Merrick without the aid of prosthetics and elaborate make-up, relying only upon a combination of rigorously maintained posture-adjustments. The effect is an unobstructed view of the man beneath the monster. In the eyes of an audience Merrick’s humanity is never in question, which puts him in stark contrast with a formidable phalanx of morally reproachable characters like Ross, the odious sideshow proprietor (Clive Hayward, in a solid performance), Bishop Walsham How (also Clive Hayward, just as solid), and ultimately Frederick Treves (Antony Byrne). Duttine draws a filigree picture of Merrick as a sensitive, childlike, inquisitive dreamer with a lust for life who is entirely equipped to rise above his immense disability but finds himself compromised and ultimately cut down by the desires and aspirations that polite society arouses but cannot satisfy. There is simply not a single bad performance in The Elephant Man. From Catherine Kanter, who covers the whole range from candidly comical to unbearably tragic in her nuanced rendering of social butterfly Mrs. Kendal to newcomer Jack Bennett who somehow manages to shine in the puny role of ‘Belgian Policeman’. Aghast at seeming so thoroughly complimentary I would like to illuminate what I believe is the reason for this all-round high standard of performance: Ellie Jones’s production is a piece of traditional ensemble work. It is the work of a director who places great importance on the fusion of a cast into a single entity at some stage during the rehearsal process - this sounds esoteric, but it is as scientific as theatre-craft gets. This mesmerizing cast has transcended a level of performance where lapses in pace and lack of attention can tear a hole in the rhythm of the show; indeed, where mediocrity is even possible. Misunderstand me not: this sort of heightened state of stage-being is no easy thing to achieve. It is usually the result of a rigorous and attritional routine of games and exercises that can seem utterly pointless until it suddenly achieves its effect: one cast member can anticipate another’s next line or movement without thinking. This state, once mastered, gives any production a hue of absolute professionalism that, really, no production should go without. The Elephant Man is riddled with theatrical devices that hint at Ellie Jones’s sure-fire familiarity with the toolbox of stagecraft, like crowd-scenes in which everyone apart from the protagonist falls into a short stretch of slow motion, emphasizing Merrick’s alienation from the world around him or the short bursts of physical theatre, for example when Antony Byrne is moved about the stage attached to an upright bed in Dr. Treves’s guilt-ridden dream of turning into the Elephant Man. Ingeniously, none of these elements are overused, like the bed-sheet projections of the real Merrick’s anatomy which only occur twice. Sheffield Theatres’ Elephant Man is the kind of production that reminds you why you go to the theatre. Even its social commentary it achieves in an entirely effortless way. Just by being here, now, it reminds us that in this age of celebrity-battue and reality-freakshow we haven’t strayed an inch from the morally reprehensible exhibitions of the Victorian era. If you possibly can, go and see this production before it is no more. There is plenty left unsaid in this review and all of it is worth your attention. As a Londoner I am deeply jealous that Sheffield should call such a gem its own, especially since the whole Merrick-thing is part of our local lore. But then, as a lover of theatre, I’m just glad I got to see it. Will somebody please lure this production to the West End and trap it there forever!
Hackney Empire Tues 25 – Sat 29 March 2008 Box Office: 020 8985 2424 Fri/Sat eve - £19.50, £17.50, £14.50 Wed mat £15, ------ RICHMOND THEATRE
Copyright © EXTRA! EXTRA All rights reserved
|
uzens