Bernard Pomerance

The Elephant Man

play

Translated by:: Osztovits Levente

The hero of Bernard Pomerance's drama, John Merrick, is a real character: a deformed young man at the mercy of the showpeople, he wandered the fairs of England in the last third of the 19th century, until, thrown out on the streets, abandoned, and under threat of death from the outraged crowd, he was found by the fashionable young doctor Frederick Treves and taken under his wing. "He tries to make a 'normal' man of him, educates him, teaches him, introduces him to London society, and the freak follows a spectacular but tragic trajectory: the more 'like us' he becomes, the more hopeless his situation becomes. "The higher he rises as he matures into a 'man', the more hopeless it becomes to achieve the human wholeness he has already realised, and so Merrick's fate calls into question the meaning of Treves' experiment.

The story of the Elephant Man is a modern tale, at the heart of which is the parable of the conflict between body and soul, goodness and evil, beauty and ugliness. Throughout the story, we discover the goodness hidden in Merrick, who is treated as an animal, while the people around him are revealed to be the actual monsters.

This poetic play is one of the biggest hits on the world stage. In 1980, David Lynch directed a film adaptation of the play, also titled "The Elephant Man."

 

Synopsis translated by: Vivien-Tamara Sárközi

Cast of characters:

Premier: 0000.00.00