As mentioned in a previous post, I have been stage managing The Elephant Man at the Ephrata Performing Arts Center. We just finished our second weekend of performances.
The Elephant Man is a very different kind of play. Bernard Pomerance wrote it in 1977, and the Johnathan Sanger/David Lynch movie followed soon after. The film allegedly used separate source material, but it included some scenes and references that Pomerance created for his play. Pomerance sued and received a settlement. Anyway, the play is a structure that the 21st century theater-goer may have little exposure to. (I certainly did!) It very much resembles the work of Berthold Brecht, with a series of 21 separate scenes that do not connect to form a cohesive narrative. They mostly do flow chronologically, but there is a purposeful disconnection between them. As with Brecht's work, the style is realistic only to a point, and the awareness of theater is prominent.
Through the prep and rehearsal process, our director held that Dr. Treves, and not Joseph "John" Merrick is the central figure of the play, although Merrick of course features heavily. The journey of these two astounding men is astonishing, although again in typical Brecht-ian style the play seeks analysis and thought much more than emotional connection. That is not to say there is no emotion in the play – there certainly is! To see the enormous hardship that Merrick was forced to endure is heartbreaking, and his grace at handling it as well as the eventual celebrity that he encounters is very touching. Merrick's encounter with the actress Mrs. Kendall also displays his deep humanity despite his gross deformity. However, there is little to no over-arc to the emotional journeys portrayed; they are purposefully segmented. Again, it is a play that will likely leave audience members with things to think about and discuss rather than with a strong emotional imprint.
So what are some of these thoughts? For me, one of the big ones is what it means to be human. Other characters remark that Merrick wants very much "to be like others." Disfigured as he is, Merrick feels very alienated and probably sub-human. But he shows us in the play how very human he is. He has an apparently strong faith; he spends much of Act 2 working on a model of St. Phillip's church, and he frequently visits with Bishop How. And through his conversations, we see a very sensitive and caring man. His conversations with Mrs. Kendall reveal a very sensitive, thoughtful, and quite beautiful soul. In another scene, two hospital workers intrude on Merrick to get a glimpse of him. Merrick is much more concerned about the consequence for the fired worker and his children than he is about himself. He may be physically disfigured, but he shines a rather bright light on the disfigurement of our internal lives.
The other side of my education in this entire process has been my role as a stage manager. For the uninitiated, a stage manager serves as an assistant and administrator of sorts to the director throughout the rehearsal process. He or she handles contact with actors and production staff, takes copious notes on everything imaginable, and records blocking and handles the many details of rehearsal. As the performance nears, the stage manager takes more and more ownership of the production. In most cases, the SM calls light and sound cues for the performances. After opening night, the director's job is essentially done, and the SM runs everything. Ideally, all the myriad details have been handled up to that point, so in a very real sense the show runs itself. It is the stage manager's job to make sure that happens. I guess it's rather like an engineer on a train. The tracks have been laid, the destination is predetermined, and the train will do what it's built to do. The engineer sees that all works as it's meant to.
Up to now, all my experience with theater had been onstage (with just a few occasions working backstage). I got to see my wife, Joan, stage manage many times, so I had some idea about the whole process. But it was only in doing it myself that I truly understood. I came into this endeavor sort of by accident. The show needed to replace the stage manager at the last minute before rehearsals got underway, and I was willing to step in, having never had any real desire to stage manage before. But once I got into it, my eyes were opened to a new experience. As I mentioned, I had been on stage before many times, so I was familiar with live theater from that aspect. But stage managing–like directing, I am sure–is an all-encompassing engagement with the production. The SM works with the director very closely, has intimate involvement in every scene of the show (very much unlike my experience as an actor), and works closely with the designers and other production staff.
It's a much more encompassing relationship with the entire process than I had ever had, and I found it quite fulfilling. In theatrical circles, the SM often gets the reputation of being "the bossy one," but it feels very much like I am caring for the production and the people in it. From the first rehearsal, it was a much more engaged encounter with the play and the cast and staff than I had ever known. And now that we are more than halfway through the run, my ownership feeling of the play is almost tangible. I sincerely hope that the cast, director, and production staff have a sense of that same connection. I like to think they do.
And something tells me this first experience won't be my last.
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