The Real & Imagined History of the Elephant Man (NHB Modern Plays) E-Book

Tom Wright

• Herausgeber: Nick Hern Books
• Kategorie: Poesie und Drama
• Sprache: Englisch
• Veröffentlichungsjahr: 2023

Seitenzahl: 55

Beschreibung

Arriving from his East Midlands beginnings into a London thick with the grime of industrialisation, Joseph Merrick is an anomaly. In a city of factories that churn out uniformity, there is no place for someone like him. But Merrick and the city are evolving into something new. We follow him through the workhouse, the freak show, and the hospital, as he searches for acceptance in a society that just wants to stare at him. Powerful, angry and surprising, Tom Wright's acclaimed play imagines an alternative history of the person who came to be known as 'the Elephant Man'. It restores Joseph Merrick to the center of his own story: a man fighting for his right to be and to belong. The Real & Imagined History of the Elephant Man was first performed at Melbourne's Malthouse Theatre, before receiving its European premiere at Nottingham Playhouse in 2023, directed by Stephen Bailey, and supported by a grant from The Royal Theatrical Support Trust. 'A challenging, moving play about spectacle, difference and identity'Limelight Magazine 'Everyone should be moved by such poetic and accomplished theatre'The Age 'Astonishing… it's doubtful whether there has ever been a better example of theatre's ability to be inclusive at the same time as being able to shock'British Theatre Guide 'A powerful piece of theatre'Reviews Hub

Leseprobe

Tom Wright

THE REAL & IMAGINED HISTORY OF THE ELEPHANT MAN

NICK HERN BOOKS

London

Contents

Introduction

Original Production Details

Characters

Suggested Role Allocations

Note on the Dialogue

The Real & Imagined History of the Elephant Man

About the Author

Copyright and Performing Rights Information

IntroductionTom Wright

This is an attempt to write a theatre-poem about the City and the Body. In the case of Joseph Merrick, the two seem closely linked – Joseph was a product of the industrial Midlands, growing up in the pollution and close confines of Leicester. The architecture was that of terraced housing, brick privies, cigar factories, chimneys, mills, workhouses. And when destitute he was taken to the great metropolis, exhibited in the haze and smog of the East End, another curio in a city that was bulging with excess; the centre of empire, of industry, of science. There are two main characters, in so far as there are characters: there’s Joseph himself, glimpsed in twenty fragments of a real and imagined life. A one-off, a prize, an anomaly. And there’s London, a big machine, breathing, coughing, spewing smoke and steam as it endlessly churns out simulacra.

*

1888. In the same East End, the Bryant and May match girls were on strike; the use of white phosphorous in their repetitive labour led to ‘Phossy Jaw’, a disease which caused the mandible to swell and abscess, the mutant growths glowing in the dark. The strike drove many to destitution; women were seen wandering the lanes with what seemed beards of bone and skin extending from their faces. Mass production, big business, disfigurement, difference. Modernity was changing cities, changing bodies. Joseph eked out his days in his cell at the hospital, making his cardboard models of cathedrals, taking tea with aristocrats, while on the other side of Whitechapel Road, women were being found with their innards strewn on the pavement. One of the Ripper murders took place within screaming distance of Joseph’s window.

*

The authorised version of Joseph’s story comes to us from Frederick Treves, surgeon and gentleman, who discreetly casts himself as Joseph’s saviour, interpreter, even his friend. Unfortunately, he never seems to get Joseph’s first name right and keeps referring to him as ‘John’. For Treves, Joseph is a cipher, a passive patient on which can be inscribed a great man’s genius and charity. In the famous 1970s play, Joseph seems to become a parable of gay male coming-out. David Lynch, in the 1980s, fashions the story into an ironic take on high humanism (I am not an animal. I am a human being), casting Joseph as an innocent, trapped in the monstrosity of childhood. Lynch has Joseph’s death as an act of trying to imitate a print of a sleeping child on his wall, he curls up as if about to re-enter a womb. It’s mawkish and cloying, but there’s something about it that rings true. A Peter Pan from the Id, perhaps.

*

In this imagining, Joseph realises he’s being killed by kindness. The hospital is both his salvation and his tomb. He knows his world isn’t real, he is utterly dependent on his nurses and visitors for any reality. He also knows his body follows a different paradigm to everyone else – it is a shifting thing, a changing shape. It doesn’t belong. So he wanders into the big city from which he came, listening to the soot-laden stones and leaves. And there he stands, specimen, statue, tree; nature as something rich and strange. He’s not there for our moral edification or as a talisman of difference. He’s just himself, and he doesn’t have to bear all our weight any more.

The Real & Imagined History of the Elephant Man was first performed at Malthouse Theatre, Melbourne, on 4 August 2017. The cast was as follows:

Paula Arundell Sophie Ross Julie Forsyth Emma J Hawkins Daniel Monks

Director

Matthew Lutton

Set and Costume Design

Marg Horwell

Lighting Design

Paul Jackson

Composition and Sound Design

The Real & Imagined History of the Elephant Man received its British premiere at Nottingham Playhouse on 16 September 2023. The cast was as follows:

JOSEPH MERRICK

Zak Ford-Williams

MISS FORDHAM AND ENSEMBLE

Annabelle Davis

MRS HIGHFIELD AND ENSEMBLE

Daneka Etchells

NURSE WILLISON AND ENSEMBLE

Nadia Nadarajah

YOUNG MAN AND ENSEMBLE

Killian Thomas Lefevre

JOSEPH’S FATHER AND ENSEMBLE

Tim Pritchett

Director

Stephen Bailey

Set and Costume Designer

Simon Kenny

Lighting Designer

Jai Morjaria

Composer and Sound Designer

Nicola T. Chang

Movement Director

Cathy Waller

Casting Director

Christopher Worrall

Voice and Dialect Coach

Kay Welch

Fight Director

Kiel O’Shea

BSL Consultant

Adam Bassett

Audio Description Consultant

Samuel Brewer

Captioning Consultant

Cara Lawless

Dramatherapist

Nikki Disney

Lighting Associate

Luca Panetta

Sound Associate

Jack Baxter

Costume Supervisor

Emilie Carter

Props Supervisor

Alex Hatton

Production Manager

Andrew Quick

Company Stage Manager

Patricia Davenport

Deputy Stage Manager

Amber Chapell

Assistant Stage Manager

Dan McVey

Captioning and Audio Description Operator

Eleanor Williams

Personal Assistant

Louise Pearson

Personal Assistant

Evangeline Osbon

BSL Interpreters Gemma Bamber, Winston Denerley, Emma Dunleavy, Ali Green, Harjit Jagdev, Sue MacLaine, Jude Mahon, Max Marchewicz, Kat Pearson, Tom Pearson

In the in-ear Audio Description, Nadia Nadarajah’s lines are voiced by Sophie Allen.

Special thanks to: Mark Hawes (Director, RTST), Niamh Cusack, Omari Douglas, Beth Hinton-Lever, Beth Steel, Matthew Xia, Zoe Lack, Nancy Medina, Richard Twyman, Anna Burnett, Poppy Shepherd, Conor Gormally, Francesca Tambellini.

Characters

RINGMASTER JOSEPH JOSEPH’S FATHER JOSEPH’S MOTHER FIRST CIGAR MAKER SECOND CIGAR MAKER VOICE FROM ABOVE YOUNG MAN FIRST STREET GIRL SECOND STREET GIRL THIRD STREET GIRL FOURTH STREET GIRL WISE WOMAN ‘HER’ ‘HIM’ WEALTHY LADY REGISTRAR NURSE WITH TRAY FIRST LECTURER SECOND LECTURER THIRD LECTURER FOURTH LECTURER NURSE WILLISON FIRST PSYCHIATRIST SECOND PSYCHIATRIST NURSE GLYNDON MATRON MISS FORDHAM MRS HIGHFIELD MORGUE PORTER NURSE IN CYCLOPS COSTUME NURSE IN MERMAID COSTUME

Suggested Role Allocations

First Actor

Third Actor

Ringmaster

Joseph’s Mother

Second Cigar Maker

First Street Girl

Voice from Above

Wise Woman

Nurse Glyndon

Registrar

Second Street Girl

Third Lecturer

Second Lecturer

Nurse Willison

Second Psychiatrist