About something never to forget?

THE ELEPHANT MAN   – A “STORY” WHERE TRUTH PERVADES THE WHOLE FABRIC OF THE PLAY.

The Elephant Man at The Theatre Royal Haymarket has three actors playing who have been  awarded best performance accolades  through the Tony awards network. It is running until August 9 2015.

Bradley Cooper – an American actor, also known for many films, including American Sniper, Guardians of The Galaxy, American Hustle, The Place Beyond the Pines and Wedding Crashers, uses no prosthetics to portray Joseph (also known as John) Merrick who was born seriously deformed and covered with apparently strong smelling moles and lived until he was 27 years old.

John Merrick was rescued by surgeon Frederick Treves and given a place to live and nurses to attend him after being discovered passed-on from a freak show in a travelling fair where he was so frightened that he could not speak, thence delivered to the workhouse to essentially rot away ‘til death. A long running dispute ensued between his keeper in the freak show and Treves which is featured in the play.

Bradley Cooper has had to learn to distort his body quite substantially to play John Merrick who always walked with a stick and had one seriously deformed and prolonged arm which was of no use to him, as well as growths on his back, a very unsteady walk and a deformed facial structure.  Talking was not easy for him to do but he managed it as well as making conversation on such subjects as Shakespearean plays for example. Cooper is said to stretch his body out by hanging upside down on a pole after each performance.

Patricia Clarkson plays the friend of Treves in her role as Mrs Kendal who makes a surprise move towards Merrick in the second half of the play, following Treves having deeply encouraged her to show a gesture of welcome and pride to know him.  The costumes are of the period – early-mid Victorian – the ladies’  being elegant together with full length dresses and corsets, the men’s being well-fitting suits and severe white collars, together with watch chains and polished shoes.

As the actors are working from a script, the sudden surprise death of Merrick becomes the finale without a coffin or a funeral being featured.  This seems to leave the audience – or myself at least, feeling there was a lack of closure to the drama.  Of course those fans of the 1980 David Lynch film starring John Hurt will no doubt wish to see this play if they can.  In both accounts of John Merrick’s life, he is portrayed both as fascinated and a subject of fascination, and the historical period in which his real life was set adds a note of strong flavour to the telling of his experience on this planet.

Frederick Treves – the surgeon who rescued him, apparently had Merrick’s skeleton saved for his students – this I discovered through research as it is not noted in the play. All in all an evening well spent discovering the vicissitudes of the human condition and its dramas and consequences. John/Joseph Merrick lived from 5 August 1862 – 11 April 1890.

Tickets start at £10 – buy on the night for (good ) restricted view and all details of other prices and times  can be found on The Theatre Royal  Haymarket website, where you need to book in advance.