Elling

Elling
September 29, 2007
Trafalgar Studios, London
Play by Simon Bent, adapted from the Norwegian film and play

I wanted to see Elling for two reasons. First, it originated at The Bush Theatre, where I did an internship in 1998. (Coincidentally, Simon Bent wrote Sugar, Sugar, the play they were doing at the time.) Second, it had John Simm as one of the leads and was getting good reviews. At the time, I was only familiar with Mr. Simm from the last few episodes of Doctor Who, season 3 of the new run of that show. Since then, I've seen him in a number of things, but Elling was the first one to wake me up to what a versatile actor he could be as he played someone the complete opposite of his Doctor Who character. What follows is the review I wrote in my notebook shortly after seeing the show, fixed up for clarity. Apparently I was thinking too fast for my writing to handle, and some of the sentences take some brainwork to interpret.

John Simm gives a precise, exacting (say the same thing twice, why don't you?) performance as a sheltered mama's boy rooming with a fellow former psychward inmate in a government-subsidized apartment as part of an experiment to reintroduce the non-violent insane into society, rather like a program for releasing animals into the wild. All Elling (Simm) and Jbarne (Adrian Bower) have to do to keep their freedom is prove to their social worker Frank (Keir Charles) that they know how to act like normal people.

'Elling' is a buddy-play about men who are a little off but understand friendship more than most other men. They take it seriously, too. When Frank suggests that Elling's attachment to his mother in lieu of going out with a woman is due to a preference for males, he responds: "Don't be ridiculous. True, I have done my fair share of 'male bonding' as we were taught to say in the hospital. For which I am grateful, I don't mind who hears me say it.... What is there to be ashamed of, unless you fear something. We have re-entered the community as citizens. But I will never betray mother for another woman."

Jbarne comes off as the more immediately sympathetic of the two. He is a child in a man's body, oafish and innocent. His one goal is to find out what sex is like. It is all he talks about, with the same wonder as a five year old hoping to see Santa. Elling is a harder nut to crack. He is OCD, and debilitatingly uncomfortable around people. "That's not my forte" is his response whenever someone asks him to do something. Mr. Simm handles Elling's stiffness well, but just as you get fed up with him, he allows in glimpses of how immensely difficult it is to be this man. In one such moment, Elling attempts to go out alone. A skipping little girl with a doll terrifies him and he winds up catatonic on the ground.

As sex is the key to Jbarne's reintroduction into society, a secret passion for writing poetry is Elling's. He meets a poet who is just reclusive enough to understand him without threatening him, and just friendly enough to engage him.

Friendship is the most important thing, especially to Elling, who has no friends aside from Jbarne. When Jbarne chooses to spend the night with a girl, leaving Elling alone, Elling smashes the match-stick house Jbarne painstakingly made for him as a Christmas gift. Mr. Simm gave all of Elling's dialogue in staccato, and this delivery resulted in one of the funniest moments following Jbarne's 'betrayal'. The two had kept their beds in the same room, but now Elling pushed Jbarne's out. "At first I was..." he says as he goes. "And then I was..." As the audience realized that he was, in rhythm, saying the opening lines of "I will survive", Jbarne returned, just in time for Elling to snap, in perfect time, "so you're back."

In the end, after being convinced that they are hopeless cases, Elling and Jbarne discover they aren't so far from normal after all. The birth of a neighbor's baby leads them both into a celebratory hangover. Elling tells Frank to take them away. They give up--they're drunk and Jbarne has been sick on the stoop. Society isn't for them. He is astonished when Frank refuses and reports his discovery to Jbarne: "It's normal to vomit when you have children!"

Their path to normal adulthood is well and truly begun.