BY DAN VALENTI

PLANET VALENTI NEWS AND COMMENTARY

(FORTRESS OF SOLITUDE, MONDAY JUNE 9, 2025) — Today, in a blessed break from the mystery and madness of politics, THE PLANET presents a play review for which the Comment Line is closed.

BERKSHIRE THEATRE FESTIVAL

PLAY REVIEW

THE ELEPHANT MAN BY BERNARD POMERANCE

DIRECTED BY ERIC HILL

PLAYING THROUGH JUNE 15, UNICORN THEATER, STOCKBRIDGE

Ross, the carny barker who exploits the hideously deformed John Merrick (Michael Wartella) as a sideshow exhibit, utters the most important line in the The Elephant Man. He says: “There but for the grace of …”

He doesn’t have to complete the sentence. 

If we are being honest, the main reason Merrick’s story attracts us lies in the realm of the grotesque. As writer John Ruskin observed, the grotesque works in the unconscious by triggering two elemental human needs: laughter (satire) and fear. At that, isn’t laughing before anything else a mechanism by which we avoid or put off much of our dread?

Merrick’s deformities from a rare skin condition brought him a life of profound suffering, from abandonment to a Victorian-era workhouse by his parents to being exhibited by Ross (E. Gray Simon III) as a sideshow freak. The intervention of London Hospital’s Dr. Frederick Treves (Harry Smith) changes Merrick’s fate. He gives Merrick more than a refuge. He gives him a home, where he might be free from exploitation and taunts.

Harry Smith & Michael Wartella

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Merrick’s physical appearance forms the stuff of nightmares, and he—his body, not his Self—becomes an object through which people can safely indulge their attraction to horror. Ironically, this continues even after Merrick’s is removed from the sideshow. The swells who visit him in the hospital are no less attracted to the surface. They do, however, bring a with them civility and respect, eliciting Merrick’s sensitivity, his love of beauty, his intellect and wit, his goodness, and his faith in God.

The challenge for an actor playing Merrick lies in the lack of prosthetics. Merrick must be played suggestively, with facial striations and bodily distortions that are part mime, part gymnast. Wartella excels here, mimicking Merrick’s distinctive gait. With each shuffling step and halting breath, Wartella creates an illusion whereby the audience can almost see the character’s physical deformities. Interestingly, it’s Wartella’s suppleness and flexibililty that provide the props for the sleight-of-body. He’s no doubt assisted by director Hill, a master of movement, and movement director Isadora Wolfe. 

Placing Merrick’s distortions largely in the minds of the viewer, truly the only practical way this play could be cost-effectively staged, allows penetration of what his actual physical appearance prevented. Namely, we can see his shining soul and radiant spirit. 

With Treves’ care and socialization via his well-heeled visitors, Merrick transforms from a poor, exiled shell into an inspiring, radiant, if tragic presence. The literati and intelligentsia discover him through a series of visits by actress Mrs. Kendal (Laura Shatkus). He soon becomes fashionable for high society and even royalty. Same thing as his sideshow days but with the niceties? A question worth pondering.

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E. Gray Simons III

From Merrick’s viewpoint, London Hospital provides safety, security, and whatever comfort his deformities can allow. From the vantage point of the swells who visit, one senses ulterior motives. Smith does a nice turn balancing Treves compassion for Merrick, his self-doubts, and his growing dubiousness with respect to his patient’s visitors. Simon’s Ross shows salty glimpses of greed—not overdone but still rapacious in his gaze and mannerisms. A nice turn by the always-reliable Simon, that, and good to see him back in Stockbridge.

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KUBRICK * VALENTI * FULL METAL JACKET

JOIN US at 6 p.m. June 18, The Stationery Factory, Dalton MA for a book launch of Dan Valenti’s acclaimed new book on Stanley Kubrick’s iconic film on the Vietnam War, Full Metal Jacket. Good company, great talk, and, as Moe Howard would say, “free eats!” catering by Mazzeo’s restaurant, with cash bar. Come along and let Dan sign a book for you.

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Merrick cannot achieve what he desires the most: Normality. He wants to be able to sleep lying down on his back, like everyone else. His deformities prevent that. With his condition worsening, Merrick, with nothing to lose,  asphyxiates trying. The weight of his head crushes his windpipe. A mercy suicide, we might call it. 

Director Hill’s staging does not call attention to itself. Like offensive linemen in football, that’s high praise. Hill penetrates the bones of this play and its commentary on the nature of beauty. Seeing the ensemble mix on the stage gives the feeling that each is not only in the right place but the best place, like pieces on a chess board lined up correctly and moving within the rules of the game throughout the game.  

The ensemble (Ulla Collins, Hanna Koczela, Aaron Choi, Dan Woods) support the production generally well, with one glaring exception. Woods is particularly convincing as Bishop Walsham How. His clerical exasperation in the scene where Treves delivers a stream-of-consciousness word salad is pure re-acting, a lesson in acting itself. Just lovely. Choi (pinhead manager, Lord John) is a human coiled spring with his energetic movements. The weak link here is Robert McKay, who plays Francis Car-Gomm, hospital director. Merrick’s horribly misshapen. McKay’s horribly miscast.

Laura Shatkus

Memo to McKay:

• Drop the Morgan Freeman imitation; it’s hollow.
• Try opening your mouth and enunciating; you’re not a ventriloquist.
• Make eye contact with the audience; drop the far-off look, as if you’re on Mount Aetna making a Speech for the Ages).
• S-L-O-W down; this might give the audience a change to make out perhaps half of your lines and piece together the rest from context. Unfortunately, the play places Car-Grom in the opening scene, which McKay muffs badly with pomposity and overacting. Fortunately, McKay soon exits and the production gains enough momentum from there, winging on the strength of Hill’s direction and the ensemble’s strength. Consequently, McKay’s subsequent appearances lack gravity and cannot pull anything down with him. He simply becomes irrelevant.

Randall Parsons scenic design makes the most out of little, obviously a cost cutter. His use of painted canvas and color schemes  hints at both carnival and hospital without set changes. Nicely done, but one wishes that Parsons had been given a few more Franklins with which to work more magic. Costumes (Amy Avila) are superb, as is Scott Killian’s music. Matt Adelson’s lighting could use more atmosphere to enhance the hospital scenes. They’re supposed to be gas-lit not iridescent. Other productions members include Jason Weixelman, stage manager; Evan Silverstein, Hill’s assistant and Wartella’s understudy; Jennifer Scapetis, resident dialogue coach; Lillian Ransjin, intimacy coordinator (someone please tell us what exactly does an “intimacy coordinator” do?); and Kelly Gillespie, casting director. 

If truth is beauty and beauty truth, as Keats wrote, John Merrick is both beautiful and true. So if the BTF’s production.

THE PLANET‘s rating (out of 10 stars): 8.0

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“I like long walks, especially when they are taken by people who annoy me” — Fred Allen.

“OPEN THE WINDOW, AUNT MILLIE.”

LOVE TO ALL.

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