The Vanishing Elephant stems from Cahoots NI’s director Paul Bosco Mc Eneaney being told about Harry Houdini making an elephant disappear on a New York stage back in 1918. He began to wonder about the life of that Asian Elephant, the circumstances of its birth in Bengal, the human contact it would have had – good and bad – to end up on stage in north America. Frequent Cahoots NI collaborator Charles Way has written a screenplay that crosses continents and cultures, with Aoife Kavanagh and Pallavi MD creating a soundtrack and musical numbers which summon up two sides of the globe.
And so the story of a young boy Opu (played by Adi Chugh) and the elephant Janu (a series of beautiful puppets designed by Helen Foan) was formed. Caroline Mirfin dresses the cast of nine of grey costumes that help them disappear inside the puppets and slip through the porous back wall of the set.
The friendship between boy and elephant is contrasted with a series of adults who – to a greater or lesser extent – exploit and mistreat the animal. The Vanishing Elephant never shies away from pointing out cruelty towards animals and avoids glamorising animals performing in circus settings. As the Elephas maximus ends its long and dark ocean journey, the “Welcome to America, the land of the free” greeting clearly doesn’t apply to grey mammals.
For me, Houdini’s titular trick of making an elephant disappear was secondary to a moment a few minutes before when tears welled in my eyes as the elephant met someone special after a very long time apart. That the elephant is a huge puppet, with somewhere between two and six cast members controlling it depending on its configuration, and that the man in question is a different actor to the one who played the younger version of the character did not seem to matter. The scene had tremendous power in the second half of the production because the emotional connection was established and seeded so successfully in the first act. The company of creatives at Cahoots NI don’t just do magic and olde worlde Victoriana charm. They control exert control over every aspect of the theatre environment to manufacture mood and lift audiences out of their seats and into the time and the world of the story.
The pace is unrushed over the 100-minute performance (including interval). The soundtrack impresses and Philippa O’Hara adds vital live vocals. Cahoots NI premiered this show in New York last year and the international cast features Indian performers who bring a particular authenticity to the eastern leg of the story in the first act. The props and puppets have a grand scale the suits the proportions of the large Belfast stage. Iris Schmid shows outstanding control as the puppeteer most often animating the elephant’s trunk. The tableau with Janu balancing on top of a ball is fun, while the choreography to pick the circus ringmaster (played by Maeve Smyth) up into the air with Janu’s trunk is very rewarding.
While a gently grunting three-month-old baby in the seat next to me was more interested in his feed of milk, older children in the rows around seemed transfixed by the gentle storytelling throughout. The themes of friendship and trust are universal as is the depiction of forced displacement. A passing gag about some sections of society being “invisible” was picked up by the adults.
The Vanishing Elephant finishes its run at the Grand Opera House as part of Belfast international Arts Festival with two final performances on Saturday 2 November. The festival continues until 26 November. Cahoots NI will return later in the year with The Sorcerer’s Apprentice in their Cityside Shopping Centre base from Saturday 7–Tuesday 24 December.
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