THE ELEPHANT MAN
Here’s Merrick the master builder, erecting a scale model of a great church-the symbol of human ugliness creating the symbol of divine beauty. Here’s Merrick in his race against death, growing better educated and more socially graceful even as his physical state declines–he was ultimately killed by the sheer weight of his own head. Here, for that matter, is the head: oversized, Merrick half-playfully suggests, because it’s “so full of dreams.” Oh, yes, and here’s Merrick with Mrs. Kendal, the actress called in to befriend him: two actors, two illusionists, comparing how their oft-exhibited exteriors (hers on the stage, his in a freak show) conceal more than they reveal. Taking that ironic conceit to its extreme–as this play does so often with its many ironic conceits–here’s Mrs. Kendal stripping naked before Merrick, showing him her breasts and her heart with equal vulnerability, until she is interrupted by the untimely entrance of the doctor who’s taken charge of Merrick’s care.
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The clear superiority of Wayne Kneeland to the rest of the cast raises a bothersome question. In other productions I’ve seen at Live, Kneeland has played the lead–not particularly well, but better than anyone else in the company played their roles. Kneeland is a potentially fine actor–he has physical grace and a creative imagination–who seems stuck in place as the resident “star” of a small, amateurish (though ambitious) theater company. I wish he would take a risk and leave the womb, test himself against the other young actors who work at different theaters around town. Otherwise, like the Elephant Man, he’ll find himself crushed under the weight of a big head, no matter how full of dreams it might be.
