Play a Day: Elephant

Ivan Faute

For Tuesday I read Elephant: A Comedy by Ivan Faute, and available on New Play Exchange. This is another script that was workshopped at Last Frontier last summer, another that I missed. I first had the opportunity to chat with Ivan on the puddle jumper from Valdez to Anchorage on our way out of town, which is often how these things happen.

Elephant is an outrageous condemnation of moneyed East Coast liberals, depicting a world in which it is difficult to discern exactly who is complicit in the destruction of the planet, until you realize it's pretty much everyone, including the (literal) elephant in the room.

White people are insane and they are ruining everything. Not sure there is any argument against that at the moment.

When Elephant was read, I was in the next room over, enjoying a delightful, period piece for children. Uproarious laughter could be clearly heard through the thin, conference center walls, and I had that familiar feeling I have at parties where I am having an intense one-on-one conversation with a good friend who is telling me a personal story that is extremely important to them, and over in the corner the cool kids are laughing their asses off about something and I try really hard to concentrate on my friend but I can't help but wish I were over there with the cool kids.