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NEWS & EVENTS >Newletters > November 2000

November 2000 Newsletter

Interview: Tony Ward and Tim McCracken on The Elephant Man

Dave: What drew you to The Elephant Man most?

Tony: What drew me to the play, is, I think, probably inseparable from what drew me to Treves, which was the purity of his conviction that everything has a purpose, which in his life took the form of a deep compassion and a desire to heal. We live in, arguably, a cynical age, and the idea of somebody fighting for the protection and furtherance of delicate human nature is a voice in the wilderness in a way.

Dave: Do you feel that the story is especially pertinent within today's cultural environment? Are the protection of the "Natural," or the maintenance of the "Normal," in question or in jeopardy more in today's society than in previous times?

Tony: Sure. I think that with the rise of commercial interest, as a society we have taken -- because we all desire a system of belief of some kind -- that we have taken the morays of the marketplace, and internalized them and commodified ourselves. Everybody is wearing brand names all day long, and showing the status that they think they have achieved by the brand names that they can afford. There's a lot of "I'll get mine." That's the message of a consumer society, that you should be asking for what you deserve, and, yeah, Nature is buried under that.

Tim: I think there is relevance to now, definitely, but I think that it really is relevant to any period of time. I think in society the desire of people to be more like others, or to find similarities or to find things that everyone fits into is a theme that runs through centuries.

Tony: And it's a cynical posture, I think. I think that's ultimately what Treves comes to realize: that there's such a faithlessness involved in jumping energetically into the values of the day that everybody does that is ultimately faithless, that is about "mere consolation," as Treves puts it.

Tim: The thing that's interesting on that note from Merrick's point of view, I don't think he, at least initially, sees the cynicism of that. I mean I think he sees the joy in that. He sees this society, these people, this world, that he has not been a party to and that he is so excited to become a part of, and I don't think that there is anything wrong with that. That human desire, that human need to connect, to make contact.

Dave: During rehearsal, you both spoke about the responsibility that you felt to the memory of these real human beings.

Tim: Yeah, absolutely. Creating a character that was historically a real person is a great challenge, but it also can be a trap. It was glorious to see photographs, and to read and learn as much as I could about the real man, John Joseph Merrick, and the graceful disposition that he attained despite his background, and realize that he really was that way. And those things were extremely helpful in creating this character. But at the same time, I am creating a character, and if you get too stuck in trying to create an exact semblance of who Merrick might have been, that can be a trap. I think that one of the main keys for me was that aspect of child-like-ness, and remembering that, and going back and remembering that, and going back and remembering that, because I think that helped to inform his point of view and his energy throughout the whole play. It gave me a lot of freedom.

Dave: Tony, how much do you think that your interpretation of Treves was related to your desire to faithfully represent the actual Frederick Treves?

Tony: I grew to admire him a lot. I started out being awed by him because, well, first of all, he's a doctor. (laughs) Which requires a little more schooling than I had. I have always admired scientific minds. He was extremely well-read; a friend of Thomas Hardy's. To be a good friend of Thomas Hardy's, you've got to be an interesting guy. A worthy human being. Somebody who worked seven days a week and then rode his bike 60 miles was intimidating. And, you know, I had to talk to myself and say: I can - I can do this, you know, I've run twelve miles before, um, I've ridden my bike, yeah, for entire days, but not, every week. But I had a lot of respect for the way that he went about fighting for Merrick. He is doing what he can to protect him and elevate him and yeah, you see a portrait of Treves and you're like, wow. He did a lot. (laughs) He did a lot more before he was thirty-one than I did before I was thirty-one, that's for sure.

Dave: Tim, what do you admire most about John Merrick?

Tim: Well, I think probably his ability to overcome his adversity without any sense of achievement in doing so. Simply that, you know, no self-pity. He took the given circumstances, and embraced them as they came along. His life prior to his association with Treves and the London Hospital was unbearably hard or would seem to be to any normal person, for what had to have been much or most of his life. This guy, wherever he went, people would look at him in utter horror, and there was no room for any sort of possibility of a discovery of who he was as a person. Upon having the opportunity to "become more like others," he still retains such a sense of self, of who he was.

Dave: If there was one message that you would hope that audience members walked away from the play with, one feeling, what would it be?

Tim: My brother was really moved after the play, and he's not a very emotional person. He said that he has always had a place in his heart for the outcasts of society, and how they have no control over that in many ways, and to see someone who was such an outcast in some ways be recognized, acknowledged and appreciated for everything that was beautiful in him, it was just utterly heart-wrenching. So I guess, the simple thing of the old adage of not judging a book by its cover, or, realizing that humanity is so deep, and it goes so beyond any of our initial notions of who a person might be.

Tony: I have always had a chip on my shoulder about the disregarded, or the unregarded, and people writing them off for what they perceive to be a non-competitor in the game of life. Because to me it's almost madness to believe that there isn't something to be gleaned from spending time with this person or having an insight into their lives or what they see. To me I think the message would be to look for value or worth in the most unlikely places. That people who undergo crucibles like that generally have a lot to offer. They don't have a lot to offer to the ways in which we console ourselves and cushion ourselves from despair, confusion, and not being sure about why we're here and what we're doing here. We do that in facile and vicious ways, and these people are left out of that equation, and I think that's a huge loss for both those left out and those who leave them out.

Tim: It's not about having pity; you know, I'm not talking about the fact it's necessary for people to feel pity for other people, it's more the notion of acknowledging that they are a person and that there is a wealth that that person has to offer and to accept that and embrace that and allow that. Not to feel pity. Anybody can feel pity, it's not that. It's that this person has a hell of a lot to offer.

Tony: Every night at intermission, I was reading a copy of Bernard Shaw's Androcles and the Lion that the props person had put on my desk. The first 2/3 of the book before you get to the plays are essays on Christ, Christianity, the Theatre, and he talks about actors and playwrights. Whether they know it or not, "wittingly or not," I think is how he put it, they are the makers of the conscience of a culture, and I think The Elephant Man is a good example of an artist's attempt to make the conscience of a culture in that way, and that part of that requires some humiliation. It requires a humiliation of accepted value, and that's what this play does.

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