The Elephant Man Play Analysis

The play that I went and saw was The Elephant Man at the City Lights Theatre Company. The playwright of this play is Bernard Pomerance and it was directed by Lisa Mallette. This play portrays the reality of cruel things that some people face from others and how awful they are treated when they are suffering a physical deformity. The main characters of the play are John Merrick, who is the elephant man, Dr. Frederick Treves, and Mrs. Kendal. Because of the English accent the characters had, I would assume the story takes place in England. The plot of the story is a man who has an unusual disorder constantly humiliated because of the way he looks. He is not welcomed by society and is looked at like he is not human. He is brought to a hospital

Since he is severely deformed, he did unusual movements with his arms, legs, and mouth to showcase the deformities. I thought the person who portrayed him did an amazing job at his role because it was very different and he had to act non-human at some parts which really interested me in the play. The diction and dialogue in the play was different for each character. For Merrick, the dialogue that was used made a more sorrowful mood because his speech was kind of unclear and you can hear the struggle in his tone and the pain that he felt. Dr. Treves dialogue, however, was more confident and elegant, similar to some other

Any time there was actual light, it was usually on one of the main characters, mainly Merrick. Although, in the beginning of the play the light was mainly focused on Dr. Treves. At the end of the play, Merrick slowly falls asleep in a fetal position and eventually passes away and the light is mainly focused on just him as he laid there. The costumes that the actors were wearing were very old fashioned. The costumes showed the differences of prosperity in certain actors. For example, Dr. Treves and Mrs. Kendal were dressed in a more proper way, compared to Merrick who was just wearing a pair of worn out shorts the majority of the time. This made him look as though he was unimportant and not good