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by Bernard Pomerance, directed by Robin Phillips

Canadian Stage Company, Bluma Appel Theatre, Toronto

October 11-November 3, 2007

The story of the man called “The Elephant Man” is probably best known through the 1980 film of that title by David Lynch.  Three years before the film the American Bernard Pomerance premiered his play on the same subject based on the same source material.  The play went on to win numerous awards including the 1979 Tony Award for Best Play.  Though the subject is fascinating it is a middlebrow play that doesn’t hesitate to triple underscore “what it’s all about” in the second act.  Under famed director Robin Phillips the play receives just about the most sensitive production one could hope for and is cast from strength with such stars as Brent Carver, Geraint Wyn Davies and Kate Trotter.

The “Elephant Man” was John Merrick (1862-90) who suffered from what is now thought to be Proteus Syndrome, a congenital disorder in which bone tumours and spongiform skin growths cover half the body surface causing severe disfigurement.  Merrick was rescued from years as a mistreated side-show attraction by Dr. Frederick Treves (1853-1923) who gave him a permanent home in London Hospital.  The bizarre result was that Merrick became a kind of celebrity and favourite of the actress Madge Kendal and members of the court.  Pomerance is at great pains to show that Merrick is a reflection of the deformed society around him.  Characters say explicitly that they see their own good qualities in him, whatever they are, and his high society visits are overtly referred to as just another form of side-show.  The play fails when Pomerance attempts to shift our attention to Dr. Treves’s crisis of conscience over his own lack of humanity via a contrived dream sequence.  The worries of a rich healthy doctor just can’t compete with the struggle to live and create of a man once shunned as a freak.

Carver is supremely effective in the title role.  As is customary in this play, he uses not makeup but only changes in posture, gesture and expression to suggest  Merrick’s deformity.  Thus we as audience always keep in view the human being within that others struggle to see.  Though Pomerance does make his innocence too cute, Carver is moving in showing us a man fighting to maintain a sense of dignity in a body that he knows others find repellent.  Wyn Davies presents Treves as a complex character both compassionate and over-confident.  He enacts Treves’s onstage breakdown so naturalistically that most of what he says (and the reason for the breakdown) is unclear.  Trotter is outstanding as Kendal, a proud actress who is always acting whether on or off stage, except when she is with Merrick and she allows her vulnerability to show through her masks.  The rest of the cast, all playing multiple roles is excellent.  Phillips directs with a sense of precision and restraint and with great attention to the various levels at play in social interactions.  Pomerance may be guilty of making Merrick more of a symbol that a person, but fortunately, due to both Phillips and Carver, it is the person who always shines through.                     

©Christopher Hoile

Note: A version of this review appeared in Eye Weekly 2007-10-12.

Photo: Brent Carver (centre).