Illusion and Reflection in "The Elephant Man"

“The Elephant Man” kicks off New Rep’s 30^th Season.   Appealing to both the audience’s curiosity and a dreamer’s unfilled wishes for normality, “The Elephant Man” delivers on this season’s theme of “dreams, dares, and discoveries.” 

The stage is one of the simplest this reviewer has seen at New Rep.  With the exception of a sliding wall made of mirrored glass, the rest of the stage is painted black, with a single, multi-functional black box in the center.  A solitary oboist (Louis Toth) adds a somber quality to the setting and fits well with the reflective pace of the performance.

The simplicity of the design adds additional focus to the heavy-handed mirror and illusion motif repeated throughout “The Elephant Man.”  In an early example, John Merrick (Tim Spears) impresses the actress Mrs. Kendall (Valerie Leonard) with his description of Romeo and Juliet, particularly his belief that Romeo cannot be in love with Juliet because he tests her life only by checking for her breath in a mirror.  He does not check her pulse or have a doctor examine her body, suggesting the greatest test of life is the reflection of that life, the impression a person makes upon their surroundings.

John Merrick inspires this self-reflection within the good people of 1880’s London society, arousing their sense of Christian generosity and validating their need for approval.  The time period, often called the Gilded Age, perfectly complements the characters’ desire to help and their expectation of return.  Characters reference King Leopold, Jack the Ripper, workhouses, and asylums, but those are conveniently in the background, while the moral superiority the cast derives from fulfilling their Christian burden is intensely felt and immediately evident.

Though the characters of “The Elephant Man” are largely flat, the actors do not lack passion in their roles.  Dr. Frederick Treves (Michael Kaye) spends the 2-act play mixing charity and authority, doling out small kindnesses with the unmasked hope of greater recognition.  He delivers an emotional monologue at the end of Act II, and despite his conflation of social acceptance and a cure for “the elephant man,” his sentiment is obviously heartfelt.  Spears’s performance is exceptional.  As he undergoes his transition from side-show spectacle to perpetual patient, he transforms in front of the audience from a diminutive man in a tattered shroud into the elephant man.  He contorts his face; he turns his palm and holds his arm stiffly at his chest; he juts out his hip and turns in his foot as he limps across the stage.  Suddenly he is the deformed man the doctor describes.  The transformation is remarkable, and the fact that the audience begins to forget Merrick and to only see the elephant man inspires reflection long after the performance has ended.

-Victoria Petrosino, New Rep Reviewer