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The Elephant Man is a beautiful production

Posted by: UWS_JIM 10:10 pm EST 11/19/14

I really enjoyed The Elephant Man, I know people here have said it is generally a rather cold dispassionate play but this production is very moving and involving emotionally I found with moments of humor and heartbreak. The are many really beautifully staged scenes and the cast are excellent, Bradley Cooper gives a performance that will stay with me a long time.


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Front Mezz house left perhaps to be avoided

Posted by: UWS_JIM 10:46 pm EST 11/19/14
In reply to: The Elephant Man is a beautiful production - UWS_JIM 10:10 pm EST 11/19/14

if you are easily disturbed because there is a lighting engineer in the first box in front of the Mezz on that side who has a video screen, the light from it through the show would have bothered me if I had been any closer to it, I was in F 1 on the aisle. I also heard a couple of shrill instructions through his headphones.

By the way the seat was a relative bargain at $79 and I had a great view and could see the faces of the actors well enough.


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re: Front Mezz house left perhaps to be avoided

Posted by: AlanScott 01:23 am EST 11/20/14
In reply to: Front Mezz house left perhaps to be avoided - UWS_JIM 10:46 pm EST 11/19/14

I wonder if people have complained about that. I would.


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re: The Elephant Man is a beautiful production

Posted by: Michael_Portantiere 10:26 pm EST 11/19/14
In reply to: The Elephant Man is a beautiful production - UWS_JIM 10:10 pm EST 11/19/14

I have not yet seen this production, but it never occurred to me that anyone would ever think of the play itself as cold and dispassionate, and I don't believe I've ever heard that opinion expressed until I read it here. I think the play has its flaws, most notably its increasing focus on Treves as it goes along, but it's not remotely cold or dispassionate.


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re: The Elephant Man is a beautiful production

Posted by: AlanScott 01:21 am EST 11/20/14
In reply to: re: The Elephant Man is a beautiful production - Michael_Portantiere 10:26 pm EST 11/19/14

I thought Bernard Pomerance rather wanted the play to be cool, and that he was unhappy with the first New York production, feeling it sentimentalized the play.


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re: The Elephant Man is a beautiful production

Posted by: Michael_Portantiere 12:14 pm EST 11/20/14
In reply to: re: The Elephant Man is a beautiful production - AlanScott 01:21 am EST 11/20/14

Interesting. It seems to me there are many lines and situations in the play that it would be difficult to play as "cool."


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re: The Elephant Man is a beautiful production

Posted by: AlanScott 06:49 pm EST 11/20/14
In reply to: re: The Elephant Man is a beautiful production - Michael_Portantiere 12:14 pm EST 11/20/14

Spoiler below for anyone who may be wanting to avoid them:

I don't think that Pomerance necessarily wanted the lines and situations to be played as cool so much as he wanted a very unsentimental point of view to pervade. He particularly objected to the choice for Mrs. Kendall to extend the hand that would force Merrick to extend his deformed hand in response for her to shake it upon her departure.

But I believe that in general he wanted the play to be performed in a more Brechtian (there's that word again!) style that would keep the audience at a bit more of a critical distance, while not necessarily having the performances eschew emotion. But finding any comments of his on the production seems to be difficult, and I hope I'm not improperly conveying what he felt. I'm not sure just how public he made his issues with the production, which was far more successful than the earlier production of the play in England (which was more in line with what he wanted) had been.

But I do think it was written about it at least a little at the time.


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