Once again, there is new writing at Theatre at the Tabard in the form of Peter Hamilton’s tragicomedy The Elephant In The Room.
It is a curious piece that sees 19-year-old Ashley renounce his significant inherited wealth and a mansion in Basingstoke that, by family tradition, is also home to an elephant and give up on life.
Ashley is provoked into this relinquishment following visitations from Yama, King of Death and the Underworld, first experienced whilst he travelled in India.
Apart from the religious epiphany, any reminders of St Francis of Assisi should be set aside as he is a self-made pauper in name only, his equity investments funding a comfortable life in the upmarket retirement home he checks himself into.
The play then takes on the feel of a would-be Sunday night cosy sitcom.
The staff are Mr Krish, a 40-year-old Hindu alcoholic and two illegal immigrants, the Brazilian Migel who wants to be a pastry chef and the Vietnamese Lim-Ly who wants to be an astronomer.
In their care are four rather forlorn residents, former social worker Judith whose memory is a bit dotty, the Eeyore-like David, ex-head teacher Rosie regretful for not experiencing all life offered and the lascivious nonagenarian Johnny. And now Ashley.
There are one or two laugh-out-loud moments, but the writer literally loses the plot, which seems to be made up of a collection of hopeful ideas and bits of witty dialogue that do not yet gel. Whilst Hamilton’s writing remains thus unfinessed (or even unfinished?), the audience is left confounded by it all generally and particularly the symbolic relevance of the much referred to elephant.
Director Ken McClymont’s cast are under-rehearsed in rambling roles that are underwritten, giving them little to work with. Hamilton has Rosie (Josie Ayres), at Judith’s deathbed, bafflingly take the play off track with reminiscences, whilst Judith (Kristin Milward) has to pull off returning from the brink of death with foretellings from the other side.
Pushover Ashley is given some charm by Fraser Anthony, but what is an actor left to do with a characterless character? Stephen Omer delivers some good lines as the sardonic David appropriately drily, whilst Johnny (Craig Crosbie) spouts dialogue like Charles III doing a tribute act to Leslie Phillips at his most lewd.
Misjudgements that teeter around the boundary of offence are present in numbers. The trafficked Miguel is disappeared with all the humanity of a home secretary, there is stereotyping of Lim-Ly as a shouty, bossy oriental woman who tricks Ashley into marriage for her British citizenship and a life of luxury and having the King of Death and the Underworld portrayed by a person of colour with a foreign accent. Hadn't the rest of the theatre industry left that ugly convention behind some time ago?
There is quite some rethinking to be done here and hopefully Hamilton will take up the challenge. It is great to see a play where central roles are written for older actors, and hiding under a cloak of obscurity there is a trove of potential waiting to be unearthed.