The Elephant Man Broadway Reviews

Casting one of Hollywood's most beautiful people as Merrick may seem like a gimmick, but this revival, which premiered at the Williamstown Theatre Festival in 2012, offers nothing of the sort. Cooper had, by all accounts, imagined himself in the role before anyone suggested it to him, and he approaches it with total commitment, not only to reflecting Merrick's physical challenges but also to capturing the character's great sensitivity and wit. That's not to say Cooper dominates this staging, robustly directed by Scott Ellis. Playwright Bernard Pomerance also was drawn to Frederick Treves, the surgeon who helped ensure Merrick had shelter and comfort in the final years of his short life, and wrote about him.

Cooper is the best Merrick yet, in a production sensitively staged by Scott Ellis first seen a couple of seasons back at the Williamstown Theatre Festival. Cooper and Ellis have their cake and eat it too: Although the star suggests Merrick's deformity with no more than a bent arm, a contorted mouth, twisted fingers and a hip-challenging limp, he is aided in the opening scene with blown-up slides of Merrick actually taken by Treves that leave no doubt about what both the man and his acquaintances actually had to contend with.

In Ellis's efficient production, first staged two years ago in Williamstown with the same lead actors, the audience is, obviously, tasked with imagining Merrick's disfigurement. Some theatergoers will suggest that you can't look at Cooper and 'not' see a movie star, People magazine's 2011 'Sexiest Man Alive.' They'll be wrong, but that's beside the point. Cooper humanizes a man few at the time were willing to treat as human.

Fortunately the ensemble is top shelf. Alessandro Nivola engagingly conveys Treve's soft heart and stiff spine. As the actress Mrs. Kendall, Patricia Clarkson is splendidly regal and warm, though strangely, her British accent did a disappearing act. Best of all, though, Bradley Cooper, forced to contort his body and render his face emotionless, managed to express a vast array of emotions through the tiniest of gestures. It's a towering performance delivered in the most subtle fashion and I was extremely moved by him.

But [Cooper] has long been determined, even oddly obsessed with John Merrick, the hideously deformed man who rose from freak-show monster to high-society pet in Victorian London. And we say good for him and his smashing, heart-ripping portrayal. And good enough for Bernard Pomerance's 1977 philosophical adventure story, which, as always, is better on the theatrical adventure than on its fuzzy philosophy. Cooper, arguably the most beautiful creature to play ugly in the multi-award- winning drama, fully justifies the hyped-up anticipation in his first Broadway turn since getting lost in Julia Roberts' shadow eight years ago in 'Three Days of Rain.'

Unlike John Hurt in Lynch's film, Merrick on stage is not overloaded with make-up or prosthetics. Deploying impressive physical dexterity, Cooper contorts his face and body to convey his character's disfigurement. Merrick is rescued from being a touring freak show object in Belgium by Sir Frederick Treves, a surgeon at the London Hospital, who makes it his mission to understand him. Alessandro Nivola brilliantly portrays Treves as a creature of the establishment, ultimately more insecure than his impaired pupil.

Never seen The Elephant Man onstage? Then the Broadway revival of this 1977 play, by Bernard Pomerance, will provide a palpable sense of the drama's clear storytelling and elegant dismantling of Victorian hypocrisies. The two-act evening also provides a chance for audiences to gawp at a shirtless Hollywood celebrity, Bradley Cooper, just as 1880s London gaped at the severely deformed man he is portraying, Joseph (here John) Merrick. What the cast, under the direction of Scott Ellis, does not bring out so well is Pomerance's humour.

Within a few moments, Mr. Cooper - without makeup or prosthetics - will have slowly and painstakingly distorted his form and features beyond recognition. From then on, he is not Bradley Cooper, or even someone in the mold of one of the finely detailed neurotics he has portrayed so compellingly in films like 'Silver Linings Playbook' or 'American Hustle.' Instead, what this actor has become is a big blank slate onto which others may project whatever they choose. One imagines that someone as famous as Mr. Cooper has ample experience of what this feels like.

Pomerance's 1977 bio-drama calls for the central role to be performed without special makeup or prosthetics. It seems almost absurd witnessing hunky Cooper so subsumed by a character renowned for his grotesque deformities that we forget whom we're watching. But in Scott Ellis' production, directed with as much compassion as precision, the illusion becomes complete. In fact, Cooper's tremendously moving performance, along with the sensitive work of co-stars Patricia Clarkson and Alessandro Nivola, transforms this rather starchy play from patronizing edification into a haunting emotional experience.

As Treves dispassionately drones on about his subject's twisted limbs and misshapen torso, Cooper stands stock still in a cone of light and silently contorts his own perfect body into an approximation of each deformity. The piece de résistance is his depiction of the 'wide slobbering aperture' that is Merrick's mouth. Shaping his own mouth into a fleshy oval, the thesp gives expressive voice to the sensitive and intelligent human being imprisoned in his own body. It's a stunning performance, deeply felt and very moving.

Much of the play is tediously consumed by Treves debating notions of morality and normalcy with his colleagues. But even if the play lacks narrative power, the setup is still fascinating. Unlike the film, where Merrick's grotesque figure was displayed through prosthetics, Cooper solely relies on his physical and vocal abilities to convey all of this, keeping his face and body in twisted positions, speaking in a wobbly tone and moving with a pained gait. It is an extremely demanding role and he pulls it off.

There's nothing subtle about the conceit, but it still works four decades later. And the credit for that belongs to Cooper, who was nominated for Oscars for 'Silver Linings Playbook' and 'American Hustle.' To reflect Merrick's physical ravages, the Hollywood A-lister twists and holds his body in punishing positions. For two hours, he forges his mouth into a misshapen O and labors to speak. Grim stuff. But the production boasts ample humor, largely due to Cooper's delivery.

Scott Ellis' lean revival of Elephant is light on frills, very much in line with the long-standing decision to have the actor playing Merrick take on no prosthetics or makeup to convey Merrick's contorted, compromised body. This production's preference is to highlight the short-burst scenes that make up playwright Bernard Pomerance's two acts chronicling Merrick's social transformation as led by Dr. Frederick Treves, a surgeon who assumes care of the abused former circus curiosity. Theatrical grande dame Mrs. Kendal (Patricia Clarkson) also becomes a confidante to Merrick, and awakens his romantic desires, which are unlikely to ever be reciprocated.

As Peter Pan is traditionally portrayed by a gamine actress, and Hairspray's Edna Turnblad by a chunky actor, theatrical tradition dictates that John Merrick, the grotesquely deformed title character of Bernard Pomerance's The Elephant Man, be embodied by an extremely handsome, seminude star eager to demonstrate his stage chops. (Among those who have played Merrick on Broadway since Philip Anglim created the role in 1979 are David Bowie, Mark Hamill, and Billy Crudup.) In the new revival, based on the 2012 Williamstown Theatre Festival production, Bradley Cooper more than qualifies: He is extremely handsome, he is seminude (at least part of the time), and not only demonstrates but proves those chops.

The ever-fine Clarkson is a marvel of sympathetic restraint. The tender way in which Mrs. Kendal disrobes for Merrick, who's never seen a naked woman, is one of the most moving moments in the show. 'The Elephant Man' isn't a great play, especially in the way it openly tugs at the heartstrings. But when it's performed well, it's satisfying on a primal level. And yes, it's OK to cry.

In interviews, Cooper has spoken warmly of his longtime dream of playing Merrick (the 1980 movie version drew him to acting), and he certainly rises to the physical and vocal challenges. Employing the tradition of using neither prosthetics nor makeup, Cooper adopts Merrick's painfully askew physique, right arm a swollen club, left one strikingly delicate. His breathing is labored and full of gurgles and gasps, yet when Merrick speaks, it is a thoughtful, refined tenor. This collision of monstrousness and grace-of the animal and human-attracts the professional attention of Dr. Frederick Treves (Nivola), who rescues Merrick after he's been abandoned by the abusive circus impresario Ross (Anthony Heald).

As a meditation on disability it's a lot more sophisticated than what's on offer just up the road in Side Show, but under Scott Ellis's brisk, stylish and slightly hollow direction, the ideas never seem emotionally connected to the experience of the characters. The dramatic events - a crisis of confidence and conscience for Treves, a scandal involving an uncorseted Mrs Kendal - seem obvious contrivance on the part of the playwright rather than incidents demanded by character and circumstance. And yet what does that matter? Well before opening, the show had set box-office records. So step right up, ladies and gentlemen, and see something that will astonish and amaze you: a bona fide Hollywood star in nothing but his skivvies. Really, why bother with a play at all?