A Winning ‘Elephant Man’ at Crossley

Actors Co-op at the Crossley Theatre continues a winning streak with its production of Bernard Pomerance’s “The Elephant Man.” Mark Henderson’s staging captures the bold metaphors in Pomerance’s play, along with its pathos, austerity and wry humor. Henderson, who also designed the play’s set, re-creates Victorian London--its swirling humanity, its gross extremes of poverty and privilege--with effective simplicity.

Among these teeming streets falters the hideously deformed John Merrick (Keith Allen Burns). Dr. Frederick Treves (Greg Martin) picks him out of the gutter and brings him to London Hospital, where Merrick is to make his home until his death. Abandoned by his mother and abused by his brutish “manager” (Tim Farmer), Merrick now excites the sympathy and support of society’s luminaries, such as the dashing actress Mrs. Kendal (Elaine Welton Hill).

Burns’ Merrick echoes Philip Anglim’s portrayal of the role, while investing the character with a pathos and sweetness that is fully his own. Martin may occasionally drop his British dialect, but he, too, achieves a resonant emotional depth. Hill balances Mrs. Kendal’s ripe earthiness with her studied grace. Farmer brilliantly succeeds in making his deplorable character sympathetic. As the hospital’s head and Treves’ mentor, Tom Sminkey tempers his ramrod authority with just the right touch of humanity. Also in the cast are Kristina Lankford, David Swift and Treva Tegtmeier, all excellent in their multiple roles.

Darrin Degenhardt’s haunting original music should be required in any future staging of the play. Shon LeBlanc and A. Jeffrey Shoenberg’s costumes are wonderful, although Mrs. Kendal’s radical decolletage seems not only out of period but detracts from the poignancy of her subsequent disrobing.

* “The Elephant Man,” Actors Co-op at the Crossley Theatre, 1760 N . Gower, Hollywood. Thursdays-Saturdays, 8 p.m.; Sundays, 2:30 p.m. Ends March 26. $15. (213) 964-3586. Running time: 2 hours, 15 minutes.