"The Elephant Man"play review

For a moment, Paradise!"
That's the phrase spoken by one of the main characters in the play's most tender and heartrending scene. This is the tragic story of Joseph Merrick (called "John" Merrick here) by award-winning playwright Bernard Pomerance.

A prominent young surgeon (Frederick Treves) comes across the Elephant Man earning a living in the sideshows (which Joseph did fairly successfully in real life until he was robbed and abandoned by a callous manager. This is shown in the play as well.)  Treves presents Merrick to his fellow physicians in a lecture scene, again based on a real event.
As Treves displays slides of Joseph, a normal actor begins to twist and contort himself in an approximation of Merrick, and remains that way through the rest of the play. The audience is asked to suspend belief and perceive the actor  as Merrick, based on the other characters' horrified response to him. It's not always easy to keep that in mind, but Pomerance makes the point that beneath his deformities, Joseph was a human being like the rest of us, with normal feelings, dreams and desires.

At the center of the play is Treves' relationship with Merrick as he changes from a somewhat overbearing protector and savior of the impoverished young man, to a self-doubting, spiritually adrift scientist in an age that seems bent on self-destruction. Merrick, on the other hand, believes steadfastly in God and constructs a beautiful church as a symbol of his faith. The cynical Treves sees it only as a futile groping towards nothingness.

The real warmth of the play takes place in the fictional friendship between an actress, Mrs. Kendal, and Joseph. Treves has asked her to befriend him, which she does. Alas, she does, too successfully, leading to the moment of forbidden "paradise." What happens after that must be experienced firsthand.  Every month the play is being performed somewhere in the world. Don't miss a chance to see it if it comes your way!