REVIEW: Elephant In the Room by Peter Hamilton at Waterloo East 8 – 27 October 2024

'a dizzying range of themes'

At what point should our lives end? Should we call that end ourselves or let life take its natural course? How should we treat those trying to enter the country illegally? Does wealth limit our autonomy? And what does any of this have to with an elephant captive in a library?

These and many other questions receive crude answers, if any, in this play. The plot focuses on a young man who, after inheriting a fortune and traveling the world, decides he’s done with life in general and checks himself into a retirement home already populated with its own steadily degrading residents and eccentric staff. From here you’d expect hijinks to ensue, but little of note happens after this initial starting point.

This is partially because the play takes on a dizzying range of themes; at times the story tackles heavy topics such as sex trafficking and suicide, other times it looks at the more grim side of the nanny state and then changes again to focus on child-rearing and family. It’s a baffling mix, handled with the subtlety of a sledgehammer, and the show neither introduces each well nor successfully brings them together. Arbitrary events play out seemingly at random, the play ends, and we’re simply left befuddled.

The show feels like a flabby, flawed first draft drawn out far beyond a reasonable length thanks to the above, as well as the over 2 hour runtime. Moment to moment the show is technically competent but, again, as with its themes, it will occasionally throw caution to the wind and go full on, sound and light blasting intensely, to little effect beyond more numb confusion.

What little good that can be said comes in the form of the performances, and each actor is to be commended for doing their best with difficult material. Angie Lieu performs well as the eager Kim-Ly, who works to defy her troubled past despite the prejudice shown by others such as Moray Treadwell’s wonderfully geezerish Johnnie, both sparring off each other in the rare moments when the play works and you can feel a heart inside the whole thing.

But these minor moments of promise can’t stop the play from being little more than a bad mix of ideas that also lacks the fluidity of presentation these same ideas deserve. It needs significant work before it can be said to be in a suitable state, first and foremost by figuring out what it’s really about.

Produced by Clockschool Theatre Company

Reviewed by Harry Conway