Elephant Man Actor Blog, Part 2: "When I Reach It, I'll Know"

We continue our series of behind-the-scenes glimpses from actor Mike Tepeli, who is playing John Merrick, the title character in BoHo's production of The Elephant Man, opening January 7th.
12/07/10

"Listening. Every professor, actor, and good director will talk about it. Its such a basic concept, and yet it’s the most difficult ‘phase’ of the process to reach. If my process were laid out in a pyramid, with the foundation being script work; the middle being movement work, acting exercises, and every tool we use to explore; the cap stone is simply listening. Everything else is used to inform how you react.

"This final stage always takes me a while to get to, but that’s why we rehearse, and why it’s called a rehearsal process; characters mature over time, and if I keep grinding along eventually I’ll reach ‘the moment’ That’s when I stop thinking about how things ‘work’; I’m not focusing on how Merrick moves, or how he talks, or how he gets from any point A to any point B. I’m just listening to my fellow actors, and reacting. I mean this in the most humble sounding way, but I know that moment happens because it’s explosive. Others may not even notice it, but I’ll know. It hasn’t happened yet, but I’m beginning to feel it. For now, lets just say it’s a series of tiny pops, that I’m hoping will become a large bang. I just gotta trust I’ll get there."

-Mike Tepeli, Dec 3.

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Elephant Man Actor Blog, Part 1

This is a post from Mike Tepeli, who is playing John Merrick, the title character in BoHo's production of The Elephant Man, opening January 7th.

A reporter once asked Meryl Streep, then rehearsing a new adaptation of Mother "Courage by Tony Kushner for Shakespeare In The Park, what is the job of an actor? 'I am the voice of dead people,' she responded. Short and cryptic, but strangely accurate, that answer is sometimes literally true. It's always exciting to play a real person, and also nerve wrecking. How you walk, sit, respond in anger and in grief, everything you do someone literally did. I think words like good, wrong, and right have no place in a rehearsal, but it's hard not to think there must be a 'right way of doing it' for a historical character: So, you research and read your script, you look at pictures, you read journals and then read your script again.

"Eventually, you start seeing discrepancy's, little differences between the script and the historians. It could be the timeline, character description, anything really. It’s good to know numerous perspectives, but too many choices can cause doubt. The life of John (or Joseph as his birth certificate says) Carey Merrick is muddled and mysterious enough; what do I pull out as 'the right way' of the numerous conflicting accounts? I think, and I know [director] June Eubanks does as well, that you should research as much as you want, but in the end, you have to play Bernard Pomerance's script, and his John Merrick. Research is a tool, and there is no ultimate right.

"I don't wanna give too much away, but our concept lends itself to that theory. In this world, we are actors portraying real people, and I mean that quite literally. It’s a freedom that should be less strange to the actor and the theatre audience; suspending our belief, and imagining. We are just scratching the surface right now, but I can't wait for what’s ahead. Being a dead guy’s voice is pretty thrilling."

-Mike Tepeli, Nov 20.

Check back weekly or subscribe to the RSS feed to read more actor insights from The Elephant Man.

Revealing the Elephant Man

One of the unique facets of BoHo is our gatherings. The first “rehearsal” for each production is a party, usually hosted by a member of the company, which allows the cast, crew, and designers to get to know each other in an informal setting. The centerpiece of these gatherings is the design presentation, in which the director and designers outline for the cast and company their vision for the production. These presentations include all manner of media, from costume sketches to set elevations to sound and music samples, as well as a slew of inspirational images. This is the event which gets the ball rolling, and having all of the artists in one room, presenting and trading ideas, is an exciting way to begin the process.

Lighting Design color conceptual image:
Circus Parade by Georges Seurat.

Our upcoming production of The Elephant Man (opening Jan 7th) recently featured just such an occasion. The Elephant Man by Bernard Pomernace was written and originally envisioned in a Brechtian style, which means the action was not to be depicted as a realistic slice of life. This was a deliberate dramatization, with actors not hiding that they were performing a collection of scenes. In fact, the actor playing the “elephant man” John Merrick wears no prosthetic make up in this show. All is communicated through acting and action.

Lighting Design conceptual image:
painting by Frances Bacon

The director for BoHo’s production, June Eubanks, is embracing this style in her vision. The inner workings of the play will be laid bare as what they are rather than concealed in an attempt at realism. Many of the actors will play multiple parts through simple costume changes in full view of the audience. Set pieces will be versatile and move fluidly from scene to scene, becoming whatever is needed for each location. The lighting design will make use of actors carrying hand-held lights to create dramatic atmospheric shifts. And perhaps most excitingly, sound designer Joe Griffin explained at the gathering that the show’s sound effects will be provided through onstage foley created by the actors themselves. Anyone who has watched a foley artist at work knows the unique energy it brings to the onstage action. (If you haven’t experienced onstage foley yet, check out the amazing talents of Rick Kubes in ATC’s It’s A Wonderful Life this month.)

Set design rendering, featuring a
projection of Dr. Treves and the actor
playing Treves in front of it.

These ideas, taken alone, could be mistaken for a gimmick. And though theatre is, by its nature, full of spectacle, it only becomes a gimmick when used without foundation. By unmasking each of the artistic elements in The Elephant Man, Eubanks is echoing the play’s theme of concealment and revelation as well as its unique performance conventions. The technique at the idea’s core—that the actor playing Merrick uses no makeup to communicate the extent of his deformity—requires the audience to use their imagination to create part of that character. By doing so, the audience must make an investment in the character and in the world of the show. And as Anne Bogart writes in her book And Then, You Act, "ask an audience to supply their imagination, and the results will transcend anything that you can ever afford to put physically onto the stage."

Lighting Design conceptual image:
still from the 1980 film by David Lynch

Following along these lines of the open process, Mike Tepeli, who is playing John Merrick aka the Elephant Man, will be submitting blog posts describing his process in discovering and recreating this fascinating real-life person. Does the process move from the inner personality to the physical embodiment, or vice versa? What exists when we peel back the layers of a human mind? What kind of experimental leaps are made in the rehearsal room, and which mistakes blossom into inspired ideas in the end? Tepeli’s blog will be posted here every week, so come back often to continue peeking behind the curtain on this amazing show.

The Fictional Division Between Musicals & Non-Musicals

The world of BoHo is abuzz right now. We've just closed Big River with great audiences and fantastic feedback, and we're now moving into our two upcoming shows: The Elephant Man and our first holiday musical, Striking 12. As we approach the exciting and daunting task of casting and working with designers and fashioning schedules, the contrast between The Elephant Man and Striking 12 could not be more acute. Striking 12 is a fun New Years Eve musical with the actors playing all the instruments while The Elephant Man is an unflinching and realistic non-musical look at the masks we wear and the cruelty we inflict on others. And, inevitably, people begin to wonder: how can the same theatre company be producing such drastically different works?


This is a question we hear often from others in the theatre community, from our patrons, from our artists, from the organizations that generously provide grants to cover some of our operating expenses: why do you guys do both musicals and non-musicals? Isn't that kind of unfocused? Can't you find your voice? Which do you do, musicals or non-musicals?


This is such an odd question for us. Do people ask the same thing when Steppenwolf, home of very contemporary works such as August: Osage County, produces a Shakespeare play? Or when Chicago Shakespeare presents a Noel Coward play? Or when Raven Theater produces a comedy? This question of choosing between musicals or non-musicals is predicated on the idea that a theatre has to specialize in order to be any good, and that musicals and non-musicals are so different that you can't possibly do both, at least not well. And, apparently, that audiences only go to one or the other and don't enjoy both.


Well we're here to destroy such preposterous ramblings. The reason that we divide our season equally between musicals and non-musicals seems obvious to us. The aim of our season, in fact our entire company outlook, is to present experiences that are equally artistic in all areas. We celebrate art in all its forms, be it painting, lighting, sculpture, poetry, movement, acting, soundscapes, or even, yes, music and singing. Music is as integral to art as breathing is to life. Not every part of life has music in it, just as not every piece of art we create has music. Yet the tapestry of life would be woefully incomplete without music.


Our lives are constructed from a patchwork of moments of intense struggle, of heightened melodrama, of honest affection, of deadly seriousness, and of shameless levity. We try to capture this same artistic complexity by mixing such potent ingredients as the poetry of Shakespeare's The Tempest, the haunting soundscapes of Playing With Fire, the evocatively cyclical scenic design of Hello Again, and even the soaring, heartfelt harmonies of Big River's "Free At Last." So for us, there is no division between music and non-musical sensibilities. Our sandbox is big enough to include all of it. I encourage you to explore our current season, and our past seasons as well, think about them in relation to the moments in your own life, and tell me if you think the experience would be as rich and meaningful without music.