Elephant
Bush Theatre, London, until November 12
It’s typical of the Bush to have given a stage to Anoushka Lucas for her debut play, Elephant. It confirms my view that it’s now one of the most cutting-edge theatres in the country.
I take it for granted the debut plays I see at this venue will always be great. This one is par for the course. It’s another extraordinary piece of writing and acting.
Lucas, alone on stage for the full hour this show runs, takes the honours for both – but at the end it’s her piano she suggests the audience applaud. In a way, it is the star. She makes much of the contrast between the beauty of the music it creates and the butchery it takes to acquire the ivory to make it.
Nothing is quite as it seems in the England she has grown up in as a woman of mixed heritage. She’s asking questions about everything she sees. Maybe only an outsider can ever see this complicated country for what it is.
It helps that Lucas is as great a pianist as she is an actress. Between the bursts of music, she talks poignantly of her privileged white boyfriend and his ghastly right wing father. The blocks on her career. She talks, too, of how the legacy of empire, in so many subtle and often unspoken ways, belittles her. At the end, she’s on the floor showing the extent to which it has ground her down. It’s unutterably sad.
The piece is confidently directed by Jess Edwards. It’s one of those plays – maybe this can be said of all great plays – that is belittled by too much explanation. Just go and see it. I think it’s wonderful.
