The Real And Imagined History Of The Elephant Man

The story of Joseph Merrick is one of those rare tales that has never really escaped the public consciousness, and one that certainly belongs there in the current climate of institutionalised fear and prejudice. Here, writer Tom Wright and director Matthew Lutton strip back the known accounts of Merrick's life — much of which comes from the fairly questionable source of Dr Frederick Treves — to reveal the surrealness of living as an outlier in a society that values uniformity above all else. 

Portrayed beautifully by Daniel Monks, Merrick's upbringing is filtered through the smog and the fog of 19th century London by Marg Horwell’s set design. The sheer curtain is left undrawn, adding a sepia fug without obfuscating the actors, as smoke seeps from the bare floor and walls of the stage; a damp, constant presence that occasionally billows forth in great harassing plumes like some foul animal defence mechanism.

Jethro Woodward’s sound design, often more industrial than orchestral, matches it perfectly; the sombrous thud of teeth locking home in mammoth gears over strings that groan and ache like taut cables. Combined with Paul Jackson's diffuse lighting design, the play is given the hazy discomfort of a dream, and it's no stretch to see Merrick as a misshapen cog in a callous machine.

Monks portrays Merrick with innocence and tragic dignity, an intelligent and sensitive man, deeply human but rendered alien by his "geography". If the fact that Monk himself has impaired mobility on his right side adds to the affecting nature of his performance, so too does his impressive physicality, twisting his body and face to simulate Merrick's worsening affliction.

Paula Arundell, Julie Forsyth, Sophie Ross and Emma J Hawkins complete the ensemble. They each cycle through an array of characters, though they often maintain a single and incomplete response toward Merrick. As a ‘freak show’ spruiker and head nurse Arundell shows a cold desire not to so much to fix Merrick as make him fit, no matter the suitability of the mould. Forsyth is a font of sympathy that always falls short of empathy, offering kindness without understanding as his mother and another nurse. Ross, particularly in the guise of Joseph's father and as an actress researching a role in The Hunchback Of Notre Dame, is friendly but unfeeling, doling out small but shallow kindnesses. Hawkins' compassion is maybe the most impactful, recognising Merrick's obvious humanity but lacking the means to make others acknowledge it. Each time one of these four wanders from the shadows or the smoke, it adds to the dream-like quality of the play, the familiar rendered foreign over and over. Among the shifting city and its amorphous population, Merrick seems like the only solid object.

At the beginning Arundell appears all in black against a black backdrop, a low glow lighting the hem of the curtain, and offers us the sight of a lifetime — a monster, a Nephilim — warning that we may see fear or sadness or even ourselves in a beast's beady eye, but not to be fooled. At the conclusion, Merrick declares himself a species of one, a doomed evolutionary offshoot of industrial London, but finds satisfaction with his place in the world but not of it, and we're left wondering how anyone could fail to empathise in his plight.

Malthouse Theatre presents The Real And Imagined History Of The Elephant Man till 27 Aug.