Review: sterling cast aids Candice Moore’s well-paced Hong Kong production of thriller The Elephant Song
Director’s challenge is to keep suspense hanging until play’s end, something she pulls off thanks to strong performances by its three actors – Luke Lampard, Warren Adams and Kath O’Connor
Candice Moore makes a welcome return to Hong Kong stage with Nicolas Billon’s The Elephant Song, a piece that she also directed at the Karamel Club in London earlier this year as part of her master’s in theatre directing at Mountview Academy of Theatre Arts.
The short (around 70 minutes) but gripping psychological thriller offers plenty of meat for the Scottish director to sink her teeth into.
A psychiatrist has disappeared from a hospital and the director of the institution, Dr Greenberg, needs to find out his whereabouts by interviewing the missing doctor’s patient Michael Aleen. It would have been a straightforward affair had it not been the fact that, as head nurse Miss Peterson warns, Aleen loves playing games.
From the moment the young patient tricks the interrogater into believing his (wild) stories, the dynamics of their relationship swiftly shifts: Aleen soon gains an upper hand over the impatient Dr Greenberg and becomes the hunter, rather than the prey, in the chase.
Moore is tasked to keep the suspense hanging in the air throughout the performance by exploring the relationships between Dr Greenberg and Aleen, Miss Peterson and Aleen, and Dr Greenberg and Miss Peterson, and how those change as the drama unfolds. Each will play a part in the unexpected twist at the end.