An apt setting for a commendable concept but Elephant 21 falls short of any theatrical flair.
The Lottery funded Mayhem Company have set out to create a piece of work celebrating Elephant and Castle, with all its changes and redevelopments. Fittingly, they’ve chosen to perform it in the Royal Court Theatre space in Elephant and Castle Shopping Centre. It’s conceptually great but the production is overly ambitious and under developed.
Its main flaw lies in poor staging decisions. The audience sit on either side of the performance area runway-style, but there's no elevated stage. As a result our gaze is directed from side to side but never logically along the stage. Elephant 21 begins in the present day and follows four generations of the Valentines over a century of disease, wars, hardships, dances, marriages and births. It’s a sweet, sentimental story in which the characters are overly intertwined. As the characters age, different performers are brought in to play their part and these transition in time and character are cleverly and comically presented.
A projection screen at one end of the room is used to highlight a few important buildings but the picture quality is poor and the images provide little atmosphere. Rather than fitting seamlessly into the production, heightening the drama by providing an authentic window to the past, the projections interrupt the show and direct the audience's view away from the action.
The script and the acting too leave much to be desired. The company consists of both professional and amateur actors which, though risky, can often bring authenticity to the stage. In this case it doesn’t. Though the casting of mature non-professional actors to play the elder generations is endearing and affective, with other performers the acting is glaringly uneven. At times the performers talk over each other and the unnecessarily large cast seems a little lost.
The script is occasionally funny but frequently the lines make the characters and the action seem farcical. My favourite line – used to inform the audience of an untimely death – has to be “he’s only gassed him himself while we woz ‘ere talkin’”.
The Mayhem Company have chosen an apt setting for a commendable concept that encourages new audiences to the theatre, but the venue is not used to its full potential and the production has perhaps been prematurely staged.
Image Credit: Eva Sajovic
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