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Brigham Young University · Department of Theatre and Media Arts

The Elephant ManBy Bernard Pomerance

Directed by David Morgan

Nov. 2–12, 2011Margetts TheatreHarris Fine Arts Center

2 Department of Theatre and Media Arts

By Bernard Pomerance

Directed by David Morgan

1890s London England, London Hospital

There will be one ten-minute intermission.

Produced by special arrangement with Samuel French, Inc.

Brigham Young University ·Department of Theatre and Media Arts

Cast and Production Staff, 3

Meet the Company, 4

Study Guide, 5

Production Staff, 13

Producing Staff, 15

The Elephant Man

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Cast Frederick Treves Darick Pead John Merrick Graham Ward Mrs. Kendall Gabrielle Cunningham Bishop How / Snork / Policeman Eric Gourley Lord John / Pinhead Manager / Porter / Conductor Magarin Hobsun Car Gomm / Ross Peter Layland Nurse Sandwich / Voice / Princess Alexandra / Pinhead 1 Mariah Proctor Pinhead 2 / Dutchess Bethany Talley Pinhead 3 / Countess Christie Clark Cellist / Narrator Jennifer Chandler

Production Staff Director David Morgan Stage Manager Patrick Hayes Dramaturg Wade Hollingshaus

Scenic Designer Carter Thompson Lighting Designer Mark Ohran Costume Designer Maria Schulte Sound Designer Spencer Carter Makeup Designer Mallory Mackay Assistant Stage Managers Hannah Richardson Cali Wilkes


Meet the CompanyJennifer Chandler Cellist / Narrator

From Delta, Utah. Senior in cello performance and theatre education. Recent credits include Malcom/Cellist in Utah Shakespeare Festival’s educational tour of Macbeth, Susanna Cibber in Joyful Noise, Miss Casewell in The Mousetrap, and Lear’s Fool/Cellist in BYU’s Lear. She has played cello for BYU’s The Diary of Anne Frank, Berlin, Roofsliding, and Aida.

Christie Clark Pinhead / Countess

From San Antonio, Texas. Senior in acting and communications with an emphasis in advertising. Recent BYU credits include Louisa in Jane Austen’s Persuasion, Juliet in Romeo and Juliet, and Fefu in Fefu and Her Friends.

Gabrielle CunninghamMrs. Kendal

From Corona, California and San Antonio, Texas. Senior in acting, with a minor in family life.

Eric GourleyBishop How / Snork / Policeman

Junior in acting. Favorite credits include Captain Benwick in BYU’s Jane Austen’s Persuasion, Ozzy in the Hale Center Theatre-Orem’s The Scarlet Pimpernell, and Abel in Children of Eden.

Magarin HobsunPinhead Manager / Conductor / Porter / Lord John

From Grantsville, Utah. Junior in acting. Most recently he played Lachie in HCT’s The Hasty Heart. BYU credits include Keith in Stage Door, Robert in Boeing-Boeing, and Corin in As You Like It.

Darick PeadFrederick Treves

From Orem, Utah. Senior in acting. Recent credits include Aldolpho in The Drowsy Chaperone, Freddy in Dirty Rotten Scoundrels, title role in Oedipus, Starbuck in 110 in the Shade, Orin (The Dentist) in Little Shop of Horrors, and El Gallo in The Fantasticks. He was a finalist at KCACTF for the part he played in Berlin at BYU.

Bethany TalleyPinhead / Duchess

From Copley, Ohio. Senior in acting with a minor in contemporary dance. Recent credits include Elizabeth in Jane Austen’ s Persuasion, Sophie in The Star Spangled Girl, Jenny in Chapter Two, and the Neighbor in Blood Wedding.

Graham WardJohn Merrick

From Boston, Massachusetts. Senior in acting. Recent credits include Peter in BYU’s The Diary of Anne Frank and Touchstone in As You Like It.

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Accounts, p. 5

Merrick, p. 6

Disease, p. 8

Freak Shows, p. 9

Pomerance, p. 10

Watermelon, p. 12

The Elephant Man Study Guide

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Accounts of Merrick’s life at the hospital are nearly all derived from Treves’s The Elephant Man and Other Reminiscences, published in 1923.

At the end of his letters, Joseph Merrick included a poem that he often quoted. Merrick penned the first four lines, but he modeled them on the last four lines, which are from Isaac Watts’ poem, “False Greatness.”

BibliographyInformation Durbach, Nadja. Spectacle of Deformity: Freak Shows and Modern British Culture. Berkeley: U California P, 2010. Freedberg, Irwin M., Arthur Z. Eisen, Klaus Wolff, K. Frank Austen, Lowell A. Goldsmith, and Stephen I. Katz. Fitzpatrick’s Dermatology in General Medicine. 6th ed. New York: McGraw-Hill, 2003. Friedman, L. D. “The Elephant Man.” Academic Medicine 75.5: 448-9. Howell, Michael, and Peter Ford. The True History of the Elephant Man. 3rd ed. London: Penguin, 1992. Montagu, Ashley. The Elephant Man: A Study in Human Dignity. 1971. New York: E.P. Dutton, 1979. Treves, Frederick. The Elephant Man and Other Reminiscences. London: Cassell, 1923.Images Chemers, Michael M. Staging Stigma: A Critical Examination of the American Freak Show. New York: Palgrave, 2008. Drimmer, Frederick. The Elephant Man. Toronto: General Publishing, 1985. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Joseph_Merrick_carte_de_visite_photo,_c._1889.jpg http://www.avgi.gr/ArticleActionshow.action?articleID=582789 http://www.freakingnews.com/Watermelon-Pictures--2609.asp http://www.kulturbuehne-schruns.at/programm


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In 1884 Merrick realized

that his only alternative to

a workhouse was to use his

disfigured appearance in

popular “freak” shows of the

day. He turned to Sam Torr, a

local peddler of unfortunate

souls, who set Merrick up in a

show located next to the London

Hospital. It was here that

Merrick caught the attention

of a number of surgeons,

including Frederick Treves.

Brecht’s theatre was dedicated to sociopolitical transformation. He believed that in order for the theatre to teach an audience how it should be politically, it needed to engage in practices that alienated the audience from the production. Brecht did not want the audience to be carried away in the story, but rather he wanted them to maintain a continual critical awareness of what could be learned from witnessing the story. He wanted the audience to recognize the message and then apply that message in their lives. And for Brecht, that message was always political.

By the mid 1880s, the public’s taste for human curiosities began to dwindle as public opinion began to

see the practice as degrading. Late in 1884, Dr. Treves presented Merrick to the Pathological Society of London and the attention he received from the medical society caused the authorities to remove him from his place in Torr’s show. At this time, he joined up with a series of other managers—one of whom stole his savings—and toured England and Europe before returning to London.

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In the 1850s, freak shows

were quickly growing in

number. Displaying both

human oddities and working acts, freak shows

were the forerunner to the

modern day circus. P. T.

Barnum’s Great Travelling

Museum, Menagerie, Caravan and Hippodrome

was one of the biggest in

the U.S. and displayed

classic attractions such

as the fat lady, midgets,

giants, the bearded lady, conjoined twins,

sword eaters, and assorted other “wonders”

that would shock and intrigue viewers:

“Everyone in society, up to the level

of its crowned heads, shared in the

tastes for men who could dance without

legs, dwarfs, giants, or scaly boys.”

In the early 1970s, Pomerance was actively involved with a Brecht-based theatre company called Foco Novo, when he wrote The Elephant Man. One of the standout aspects of this play is the way that he depicted John Merrick’s deformity. In the script Pomerance indicates that the deformity was not to be achieved through using stage makeup or a padded costume but through the actor’s contortion of his own body—bending his neck, back, arms, legs, etc. into a horrific pose—a choice that aligns well with Brechtian theatre theory.


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Merrick died unexpectedly at the London

Hospital on April 11, 1890. It is thought

that he suffocated as a result of the weight

of his head, which dislocated his spine.

In The Elephant Man, Merrick is not the one that organizes his body. Others

use their own bodies and the accepted organization of those bodies and then

demand that other bodies be organized identically. Treves’ science provides

one compelling example of this. Even though Treves makes a significant effort

to include Merrick in social life, his commitment to the categories of his science

keeps him in a place where all he can do is pity Merrick, for lacking what others

have. Merrick on the other hand, cannot understand why he must necessarily

be seen as one that lacks

and thus be excluded from

social life. In this way, then,

we see that Treves’ science

is essentially politics—inasmuch as politics means

the establishing of criteria

for the inclusion and exclusion of individuals.

Joseph Casey Merrick was born in Leicester, England, in 1862. By all appearances he was a healthy normal baby, but as early as age two he began to show signs of the condition that would earn him the name “Elephant Man.” He attended regular school until age eleven or twelve. His mother died in 1873, and his father remarried a widow who had several children of her own. She apparently had no fondness for Joseph,

and he went to live with an uncle. When Merrick was just fifteen he was sent to the Leicester Union workhouse, where he lived and worked for nearly four years. His time there was nearly unbearable; for years after, he “shrank with the greatest of horror’’ from the idea of any possible return to such a place.

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Pomerance asks the actor to portray

the deformity in the way that he

does—Brechtian—so as to remind the

audience that Merrick’s deformity is not

essentially a “problem” or “obstacle”

or even an actual “deformity.” Rather,

it is something that could easily be

remedied; the actor could simply

stand up straight. Pomerance is

not, however, saying that Merrick’s

deformity is his own fault—the result

of him choosing not to stand up.

Instead, Pomerance is saying that

what keeps the deformity a “deformity” is society’s classification of it as such.

Society determines that a body that looks like that is deformed, and therefore it

becomes deformed. What society could do, on the other hand, is simply stand

up and, by doing so, heal a great number of people that suffer a social stigma.

Not until the 1890s did people

begin to question the morality

of such shows. These displays

could still be found, however,

well into the twentieth century.

In many places, the “exhibition

of any deformed human being”

is prohibited by law, but there is

still a place in the entertainment

industry for those with unique

talents or physical appearance.

Named for the Greek sea god that could change his shape, the disorder causes skin overgrowth and bone protuberances that can greatly disfigure one’s body. Although the location and severity of the growths vary greatly, they commonly appear on the skull, limbs, and soles of the feet. Muscles, fatty tissue, and lymphatic vessels are also affected, causing pain and increasing the risk of premature death because of vessel malformations.


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Pomerance communicates this “message” through a Brechtian theatrical technique, but the message itself is more closely aligned with the ideas of Artaud. One of the desires expressed by Artaud in his writing was the desire to be “a body without organs.” Artaud recognized that the division of the human body into various parts and organs is more or less an arbitrary division. There is no essential reason that human bodies are organized that way that anatomists say they are. The categories of anatomy have not been discovered but decided. With this in mind, Artaud did not like the idea that someone else decided how to organize his body. He wanted to be the one to do that organizing.

Proteus syndrome, also known as Wiedemann’s syndrome, is a progressive congenital disorder, caused by a chromosomal abnormality, although the effects of it may not be apparent for several years after birth. Researchers

have recently identified the gene on which the disorder exists and are working on determining the best ways to diagnose and treat it.

Theatre scholars generally agree that the two most influential theatre theorists of the twentieth century are the German director/playwright Bertolt Brecht (1898–1956) and the French actor/playwright Antonin Artaud (1896–1948). Although both of these theorists believed in the potential of theatre to transform society, their theories about how theatre could achieve this were very different—one might even say, opposite. Well, opposite or not, Bernard Pomerance’s The Elephant Man brings these two theorists together in an interesting way.

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Upon arrival in London, he presented Dr. Treves’ business card to the port authorities, and Treves promptly retrieved him and took him to the London hospital. His stay was never meant to be permanent, but after the hospital director published a solicitation in the London Times, donations came forward and a permanent apartment was set up for Merrick within the hospital.

’Tis true my form is something odd, But blaming me is blaming God; Could I create myself anew I would not fail in pleasing you. If I could reach from pole to pole Or grasp the ocean with a span, I would be measured by the soul; The mind’s the standard of the man.

The message is from Artaud. The method is from Brecht. But with an overtly political message delivered through a dis-organized body

on the stage, both would likely be very pleased.

The disorder does not necessarily cause learning impairments, although sufferers of Proteus syndrome often have visual or speech impairments that can make communication difficult. There are currently approximately 120 living people worldwide that have been diagnosed with Proteus Syndrome.


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Production StaffMaria Schulte Gardner Costume Designer

From Jefferson City, Missouri. Senior in theatre arts studies with an emphasis in costume design. Maria was recently costume co-designer for Béatrice et Bénédict and costume designer for Babe, the Sheep Pig at BYU.

Patrick Hayes Stage Manager

From Cocoa Beach, Florida. Graduate student in theatre and media arts with an emphasis in stage management and performance art. Patrick recently stage managed USP’s The Importance of Being Ernest and was an assistant stage manager for BYU’s Jane Austen’s Persuasion.

Aileen Hill Set Dressing Designer

From Gilbert, Arizona. Sophomore in athletic training. Recent design credits include Stage Door; Babe, the Sheep Pig; Jane Austen’s Persuasion, and Amahl and Globolinks.

Hannah May Kroff Props Designer

From Carthage, Missouri. Junior in theatre arts studies with an emphasis in directing. Recent Utah Shakespeare in the Park credits include Chekov’s Uncle Vanya and Shakespeare’s The Merchant of Venice. BYU credits include assisting with Peter Pan and Jane Austen’s Persuasion, props designer for Cinderella and Béatrice et Bénédict, and dressing designer for Anne Frank.

Mallory MackayMakeup, Hair, and Mask Designer

From Lehi, Utah. Senior in theatre arts studies with an emphasis in costume and makeup design. Recent credits include assistant costume designer for Peter Pan and assistant costumes and co-makeup for The Diary of Anne Frank.

Hannah Richardson Assistant Stage Manager

From Fountain Valley, California. Sophomore in theatre and media arts. This is her first production at BYU.

Shanti Rose Assistant Director

From Gainesville, Florida. Senior in theatre media arts with an emphasis in directing. Recent credits include stage manager for The Diary of Anne Frank, lighting design for August Rush, and directing Children of a Lesser God. Favorite credits include Savior of the World and the Nauvoo Pageant.

Carter Thompson Scenic Designer

From Stansbury Park, Utah. Senior in theatre arts studies with an emphasis in scenic design. Recent credits include assistant scenic designer for BYU’s Stage Door and Jane Austen’s Persuasion. This summer he attended the Prague Quadrennial of Performance Design and Space. He is a two-time recipient of the O. Lee Walker award for excellence in technical theatre.

Marcella Toronto Assistant Makeup, Hair, and Mask Designer

From Beijing, China. Junior in theatre arts studies with an emphasis in theatre management. This past summer she interned and stage managed for Songlei Oriental Theatre Company in Beijing. She is president of BYU’s Experimental Theatre Company.

Cali Wilkes Assistant Stage Manager

From Portland, Oregon. Junior in theater education. Recent credits include the Young Company’s show The Hundred Dresses.


The Kennedy Center American College Theater Festival™ 44sponsored in part by

Stephen and Christine SchwarzmanThe Kennedy Center Corporate Fund

U.S. Department of EducationThe National Committee for the Performing Arts

Dr. Gerald and Paula McNichols FoundationThis production is entered in the Kennedy Center American College Theater Festival (KCACTF). The aims of this national theater education program are to identify and promote quality in college-level theater production. To this end, each production entered is eligible for a response by a regional KCACTF representative, and selected students and faculty are invited to participate in KCACTF programs involving scholarships, internships, grants and awards for actors, directors, dramaturgs, playwrights, designers, stage managers, and critics at both the regional and national levels.

Productions entered on the Participating level are eligible for inclusion at the KCACTF regional festival and can also be considered for invitation to the KCACTF national festival at the John F. Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts in Washington, D.C., in the spring of 2012.

Last year more than 1,300 productions were entered in the KCACTF involving more than 200,000 students nationwide. By entering this production, BYU Theatre and Media Arts is sharing in the KCACTF goals to recognize, reward, and celebrate the exemplary work produced in college and university theaters across the nation.

Full-time FacultyAmy Petersen JensenChair

Tom LeflerAssociate Chair

Julia AshworthBrad BarberStephanie BreinholtDean DuncanMary FarahnakianEric FieldingBarta Lee HeinerWade HollingshausMegan Sanborn JonesDarl LarsenTom LeflerKelly LoosliDavid MorganGeorge NelsonTom RussellEric SamuelsenRory ScanlonRodger D. SorensenJanet L. SwensonSharon L. SwensonTim Threlfall

Adjunct Faculty & Part-time FacultyKim AbunuwaraTravis AllenDane AllredWendy AstonLisa BeanLara BeeneRandy BootheCathy BlackJared CardonMichael ChadbourneBrandon ChristensonJanielle ChristensenDan ClarkTravis ClineTravis Coyne*Pat DebenhamMelissa DeLangeDeanne DeWitt*Scott EckernLisa ElzeyStephanie FreemanMichael G. Handley*Erika HillScott Hill

Jon Holloman*Wynn HougaardTim IrwinRuston JonesMelissa LarsenLindsay LivingstonTeresa LoveJeffrey Martin*Shirene McKayJaynanne MeadsKymberly MellenChristopher MillerKee MillerKurt MortensenBradley MossShawnda MossChar NelsonDonnette Perkins*Karen PetersonJason PurdieStephen PurdieReese PurserGayanne RamsdenEmily RayJennifer Reed*Nathaniel Reed

Russell D. Richins*Lauren RoundyCourtney RussellJohn ShurtleffJoyce SkidmoreJerry StaynerTroy StreeterAnne Sward-HansenBen UngurenBecky WallinFrank Weight*Kendall WilcoxRon WilkinsonDiona WilsonElain WittMark WoodruffWard Wright*

Administrative StaffElizabeth FunkThaylene RogersKyle Stapley

*BYU Arts Production

Department of Theatre and Media Arts

The Elephant Man 15

Producing StaffProducer and Artistic DirectorAmy Petersen Jensen

Asso. Artistic DirectorJeff Parkin

Director David Morgan

Production ManagerJennifer Reed

Stage Events CoordinatorJennifer Reed

Production AssistantHeather Bosen

Technical DirectorTravis Coyne

Assistant Technical DirectorWard Wright

Special Projects CoordinatorFrank Weight

Special Projects AssistantMark Clawson

ExpediterMatthew Pearson

DraftsmanLogan Hill

Scenic ArtistsKatie Eargle Alicia Garrett Chad Lindsay Rachel Robinson

Scenic CrewCarter Thompson Thomas Bosen Brian Brough Brent Robison Erin Stevenson Danny Jacobson Heather Starr Michelle Burg Andrew Payne

Lighting AdvisorMichael G. Handley

Asst. Lighting AdvisorMarianne Ohran

Master ElectricianPaul McGrew

Resident ElectricianBecky Howard

Electrics CrewMckenzie OttleyJosh RobertsClifton HargusDouglas OlsenAmelia DunlapAustin WilkinsBrett VandygriffSeth MergistTrent McFadyenBrianna Stephenson

Costume Shop ManagerDonnette Perkins

Asst. Costume Shop ManagerDeanne DeWitt

Cutter/DraperDeanne DeWittGloria PendleburyMary Jane Wadley

First HandDiane OgdenAdeline Pichot

Costume Crafts SupervisorMaria Schulte Gardner

Wardrobe SupervisorChelsey RobertsMelissa DeGuire

StitchersJocelyn Chatman Stephanie Davis Melissa DeGuire Natalie Hughes Sheri Johnson Mallory Mackay Ashley McWhorter Jane Ostergar Adeline Pichot

Chelsey Roberts Angela Robinson

Hair & Makeup SupervisorsJanell Turley Arianna Woodward

Makeup CrewTMA 267 students

DressersDavis Hansen Catherine Maynes Emily Workman

House Audio EngineerTroy Streeter

Audio CrewJake Peery Spencer Carter Matt Talley Doug Olsen

Properties DesignerAileen Hill

Set DresserLara Nelson

Ticketing Services ManagerJeffrey Martin

Ticket Office AccountantDelayni Dewitt

Ticket Office SupervisorsMegan Leavitt Kimberly LeNeave Clarissa Oliphant

Ticket AgentsAshley Barnum Sian-Amy Baldock Ben Brown Landon Drean Megan Evans Johnelle Maielua Kylie Marquis Melinda Miller Kelsie Stuart Marcella Toronto Erin Wright Liz Young

House ManagersAshley Werner Cory Scott Janey Scott Kayla Scott Lindsey Sommercorn

UshersRachel Chantry Mehlanie Kayra Danielle Luna Rachel Lindsey Sam Bostwick Stephanie Maynes Stephen Maynes

Business ManagerKyle Nielsen

Asst. Business ManagerKelly Bready

AccountantsAmy Collyer Brady Sanders

Art Director Shay S. Spaulding

Poster IllustrationLiz Pulido

PhotographyMark Philbrick HandleyCraft Photography

Program DesignDanielle Hale

Marketing AssistantsDavid Jon Banks Jana Cummings Anna Dapper Sarah Dickson Jeffrey Laidlaw Bryan Lovgen

Scheduling CoordinatorBethany Talley

Scheduling SecretariesAndrea Bytheway Paige Dewey Crysta Powell Zoe Smith

Donors

Mary Lou Fulton Chair Endowment Ira A. and Mary Lou Fulton

2011–2012

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The Department of Theatre and Media Arts expresses deep appreciation to our generous patrons. For information about giving to Theatre and Media Arts, visit cfac.byu.edu and click on the link “Giving to the College.”

For information on how you can play a greater role in Theatre and Media Arts at BYU contact Rodger D. Sorensen, department chair, at (801) 422-8132 or [email protected]

Dr. Marcus & Lorena Bach Endowment J. LaVar & Helen Bateman Endowment Verda Mae Fuller Christensen EndowmentMarie Clegg Jones Speech Endowment Cherrill B. Liptak Endowment O. Lee Walker Endowment

R. Don & Shirley Oscarson EndowmentRuth Smith Silver EndowmentDonald C. Sloan EndowmentDivine Comedy EndowmentH. Roland Tietjen EndowmentFrank Whiting Endowment

Richard & Carma de Jong AndersonElder Clayton M. & Christine Q. ChristensenJanet L. Swenson

Harold R. & Ima Jean OaksVanderbilt Medical Center

Bluefire Studios Expense Scott & Kristin CardJames & Kathleen Crapo

Rosenblum Family TrustTimothy & Linda ThrelfallNewspace Entertainment

Hooshang & Mary FarahnakianEric & Cecelia FieldingMichael & Virginia Handley

Bob & Char NelsonGeorge & Leslie Jo NelsonScott & Marny Parkin

Eric & Annette SamuelsenRory & Deanna ScanlonRodger & Claudia Sorensen

David & Keri DoeringElizabeth C. FunkMark & Sharlene Habermeyer

Kent and Paula HansenBarta L. Heiner

McKay and Amy JensenWard & Mary Wright

Kim & Lynette ChristensenJames & Aleta CleggDeanne DeWittDavid & Virginia FieldingKent & Renee GandolaGayle B. Hansen

Brian & Joy HafenPriscilla HaoSheril & Ann HillGarold & Donna HolladayWelby & Lissa JensenGerrit & Lynda Kruitbosch

George W. Latimer, Jr.Tom & Laura LeflerMatthew & Teresa LoveKazadi & Misenga MusungayiMerilee A. PettersenWendi F. Ricks

William III & Anedra SchadrackSam & Linda SimoneEthan & Mirjam VincentAmanda R. Von Der LoheRalph & Cornelia Wilson

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