Elephant Man

Bernard Pomerance

• Publisher: Grove Press
• Year: 2020
• Print ISBN: 9780802130419
• eBook ISBN: 9780802196019
• Topic: Literature
• Subtopic: British Drama
• Index: Literature

"An enthralling and luminous play" about the nineteenth-century man whose physical deformity doomed him to the life of an outcast: "haunting [and] splendid" ( The New York Times).
 
The Elephant Man is based on the life of John Merrick, who lived in London during the latter part of the nineteenth century. A horribly deformed young man, a freak attraction in traveling side shows, is found abandoned and helpless and is admitted for observation to Whitechapel, a prestigious London hospital.
 
Under the care of a famous young doctor who educates him and introduces him to London society, Merrick changes from a sensational object of pity to the urbane and witty favorite of the aristocracy and literati. But his belief that he can become a man like any other is a dream never to be realized.
 
After premiering in London, The Elephant Man went on to Broadway where it won the Tony for Best Play in 1979. It was later revived in a Broadway production starring Bradley Cooper.
 
" The Elephant Man is a moving drama. Lofted on poetic wings, it nests on the human heart." — Time Magazine

SCENE VIII
MERCY AND JUSTICE ELUDE OUR MINDS AND ACTIONS

MERRICK in bath. TREVES, GOMM.

MERRICK: How long is as long as I like?

TREVES: You may stay for life. The funds exist.

MERRICK: Been reading this. About homes for the blind. Wouldn’t mind going to one when I have to move.

TREVES: But you do not have to move; and you’re not blind.

MERRICK: I would prefer it where no one stared at me.

GOMM: No one will bother you here.

TREVES: Certainly not. I’ve given instructions.

PORTER and SNORK peek in.

PORTER: What’d I tell you?

SNORK: Gawd almighty. Oh. Mr. Treves. Mr. Gomm.

TREVES: You were told not to do this. I don’t understand. You must not lurk about. Surely you have work.

PORTER: Yes, sir.

TREVES: Well, it is infuriating. When you are told a thing, you must listen. I won’t have you gaping in on my patients. Kindly remember that.

PORTER: Isn’t a patient, sir, is he?

TREVES: Do not let me find you here again.

PORTER: Didn’t know you were here, sir. We’ll be off now.

GOMM: No, no, Will. Mr. Treves was precisely saying no one would intrude when you intruded.

TREVES: He is warned now. Merrick does not like it.

GOMM: He was warned before. On what penalty, Will?

PORTER: That you’d sack me, sir.

GOMM: You are sacked, Will. You, his friend, you work here?

SNORK: Just started last week, sir.

GOMM: Well, I hope the point is taken now.

PORTER: Mr. Gomm—I ain’t truly sacked, am I?

GOMM: Will, yes. Truly sacked. You will never be more truly sacked.

PORTER: It’s not me. My wife ain’t well. My sister has got to take care of our kids, and of her. Well.

GOMM: Think of them first next time.

PORTER: It ain’t as if I interfered with his medicine.

GOMM: That is exactly what it is. You may go.

PORTER: Just keeping him to look at in private. That’s all. Isn’t it?

SNORK and PORTER exit.

GOMM: There are priorities, Frederick. The first is discipline. Smooth is the passage to the tight ship’s master. Merrick, you are safe from prying now.

TREVES: Have we nothing to say, John?

MERRICK: If all that’d stared at me’d been sacked—there’d be whole towns out of work.

TREVES: I meant, “Thank you, sir.”

MERRICK: “Thank you sir.”

TREVES: We always do say please and thank you, don’t we?

MERRICK: Yes, sir. Thank you.

TREVES: If we want to properly be like others.

MERRICK: Yes, sir, I want to.

TREVES: Then it is for our own good, is it not?

MERRICK: Yes, sir. Thank you, Mr. Gomm.

GOMM: Sir, you are welcome. (Exits.)

TREVES: You are happy here, are you not, John?

MERRICK: Yes.

TREVES: The baths have rid you of the odor, have they not?

MERRICK: First chance I had to bathe regular. Ly.

TREVES: And three meals a day delivered to your room?

MERRICK: Yes, sir.

TREVES: This is your Promised Land, is it not? A roof. Food. Protection. Care. Is it not?

MERRICK: Right, Mr. Treves.

TREVES: I will bet you don’t know what to call this.

MERRICK: No, sir, I don’t know.

TREVES: You call it, Home.

MERRICK: Never had a home before.

TREVES: You have one now. Say it, John: Home.

MERRICK: Home.

TREVES: No, no, really say it. I have a home. This is my. Go on.

MERRICK: I have a home. This is my home. This is my home. I have a home. As long as I like?

TREVES: That is what home is.

MERRICK: That is what is home.

TREVES: If I abide by the rules, I will be happy.

MERRICK: Yes, sir.

TREVES: Don’t be shy.

MERRICK: If I abide by the rules I will be happy.

TREVES: Very good. Why?

MERRICK: Why what?

TREVES: Will you be happy?

MERRICK: Because it is my home?

TREVES: No, no. Why do rules make you happy?

MERRICK: I don’t know.

TREVES: Of course you do.

MERRICK: No, I really don’t.

TREVES: Why does anything make you happy?

MERRICK: Like what? Like what?

TREVES: Don’t be upset. Rules make us happy because they are for our own good.

MERRICK: Okay.

TREVES: Don’t be shy, John. You can say it.

MERRICK: This is my home?

TREVES: No. About rules making us happy.

MERRICK: They make us happy because they are for our own good.

TREVES: Excellent. Now: I am submitting a follow-up paper on you to the London Pathological Society. It would help if you told me what you recall about your first years, John. To fill in gaps.

MERRICK: To fill in gaps. The workhouse where they put me. They beat you there like a drum. Boom boom: scrape the floor white. Shine the pan, boom boom. It never ends. The floor is always dirty. The pan is always tarnished. There is nothing you can do about it. You are always attacked anyway. Boom boom. Boom boom. Boom boom. Will the children go to the workhouse?

TREVES: What children?

MERRICK: The children. The man he sacked.

TREVES: Of necessity Will will find other employment. You don’t want crowds staring at you, do you?

MERRICK: No.

TREVES: In your own home you do not have to have crowds staring at you. Or any...

Table of contents

• Cover Page
• Title Page
• Copyright Page
• Introductory Note
• Characters
• Scene I He will have 100 Guinea Fees Before he’s Forty
• Scene II Art is as Nothing to Nature
• Scene III Who has Seen the Like of this?
• Scene IV This Indecency May not Continue
• Scene V Police Side with Imbecile Against the Crowd
• Scene VI Even On the Niger and Ceylon, not This
• Scene VII The English Public will Pay for Him to be Like Us
• Scene VIII Mercy and Justice Elude our Minds and Actions
• Scene IX Most Important are Women
• Scene X When The Illusion Ends he Must Kill Himself
• Scene XI He Does it With Just one Hand
• scene XII Who Does he Remind you of?
• Scene XIII Anxieties of the Swamp
• Scene XIV Art is Permitted but Nature Forbidden
• Scene XV Ingratitude
• Scene XVI no Reliable General Anesthetic has Appeared yet
• Scene XVII Cruelty is as Nothing to Kindness
• Scene XVIII We are Dealing With an Epidemic
• Scene XIX They Cannot Make out What he is Saying
• Scene XX The Weight of Dreams
• Scene XXI Final Report to the Investors