Bernard Pomerance’s 1979 Tony Award-winning play The Elephant Man has been around long enough to be considered a classic. Cincinnati Shakespeare Company right now is proving the truth of that designation with a sterling production that portrays a severely disfigured Victorian man whose body made him an object of scorn and morbid fascination in 1880s London.
Playing Joseph Merrick, referred to in the play as John, is no easy task. In Pomerance’s conceit for the show, the actor is not made up or fitted with any prosthetics to simulate the character’s physicality. Instead, an ambitious and self-assured physician clinically describes Merrick, using photos as he speaks about the man’s oversized head, misshapen arm, deformed body and his painful, limping gait. As the doctor speaks, the actor slowly changes his stance, contorts his face and cranks his torso in a way that’s hard to imagine doing momentarily, let alone sustaining it for the duration of a two-hour play. (In the script, the playwright warns, “No one with any history of back trouble should attempt the part of Merrick as contorted.”)
It takes a remarkable actor to fulfill this role. In 2014, movie star Bradley Cooper was praised for his performance as Merrick in a Tony-nominated Broadway revival. Lucky for Cincinnati audiences, veteran performer Giles Davies, in his 17th season with Cincy Shakes, was available for this production. It’s quite astonishing to watch this extremely physical actor become Merrick. Not only does he embody those afflictions, he employs a voice that seems to emerge from within the tortured body, at first muffled and hard to decipher but increasingly clear and insightful.
In fact, as Merrick’s life evolves from a sad existence as a carnival freak to a respected man visited by the royalty of 19th-century London, he becomes more and more skeptical about the ways of the world and how “proper” people are expected to behave. Davies conveys Merrick’s bemused observations with both innocence and wry wit.
Merrick’s “savior,” Dr. Frederick Treves (Brent Vimtrup), finds his life headed in an unexpectedly opposite direction. Caring but patronizing — he insists that Merrick repeat moralizing dictums —Treves finds himself unable to answer Merrick’s piercing, common-sense queries regarding the rationale for straitlaced decorum in Victorian England.
Vimtrup initially plays Treves as a confident man with a firm grip on success in his profession and life. But as time passes, he wonders whether he has truly helped Merrick. Treves’ life seems less and less stable and, as it spirals away from him, Merrick demonstrates greater clarity and religious faith. It’s evident fragile health will cut short his time, but he is a romantic who believes his head is so big because it is full of dreams.
In a desperate effort to help Merrick expand his contact with humanity, Treves recruits a stage actress, Mrs. Kendal, to visit. Kelly Mengelkoch gives the role a delightfully matter-of-fact demeanor, a woman supremely confident with her own femininity who recognizes Merrick’s noble nature and his desire to live normally. She tweaks Treves’ amateurish coaching of how to speak to Merrick, but when she meets him, she is charmed and responds genuinely. She urges London notables to pay visits, which actually feel like a high-class repetition of the freak show he escaped. But they are also a comment on society, as guests perceive their own qualities in this deformed man.
The Elephant Man is inventively staged (scenic design by Shannon Moore; lighting by Justen N. Locke) with the action set in an operating theater in the Royal London Hospital from the 1880s, with a surrounding balcony for observers. (Some audience members, dressed in lab coats, get to observe the performance from this level.) There is a central projection screen on which scene descriptions — “Who has seen the like of this!”; “Police side with imbecile against the crowd.” — are shown in flowing script (projections and sound design for the show are by Nathan Davis).
Brian Isaac Phillips’ taut direction of The Elephant Man with an able cast yields the most affecting production I have seen onstage this season.
THE ELEPHANT MAN, presented by Cincinnati Shakespeare Company, continues through Nov. 5. More info: cincyshakes.com.
This article appears in Oct 12-19, 2016.
