Elephantine Justice
New play recounts the bizarre story of an elephant hanged for murder
by Martin Brady
In 1916, in the Mayberry-like East Tennessee town of Erwin, a circus elephant was hanged for murder. Matthew Carlton first heard of the story by happenstance 30 years ago. Then, in 2000, the noted Nashville actor began to research the circumstances surrounding this shocking event. Taking a few creative liberties, but primarily relating the essential facts, Carlton used this tale as the basis for his first full-length play, Hanging Mary, which has its world premiere this week at People’s Branch Theatre.
“I was working on an opera based on the infamous 1955 lynching of Emmett Till,” says Carlton, “when my research led me to this incident that I had heard about in passing many years ago. It was then that I shelved the Till project, and realized that by using a surface story of elephant mob justice, I could tell another thematic story—about America as the circus and our society as the ‘big show.’ ”
Investigating local records in Erwin, researching state archives in Nashville and absorbing everything he could find online, Carlton immersed himself in the Sparks Circus and the events that followed after a five-ton elephant named Mary crushed to death an unsavory drifter named Red Eldridge, who was charged with her training and handling (a job known in circus parlance as “overkeeper”).
“Through the years the story has taken on mythic proportions,” says Carlton, “and there were different versions. I culled it all down to the actual events and the actual participants. The Sparks Circus became the perfect parallel for America. They publicized themselves as the 100 percent Sunday school circus, the circus that never breaks a promise. They had a reputation for being the cleanest, most idealistic circus you’d ever see.”
The incident, which concludes Carlton’s Act 1, in fact occurred in nearby Kingsport during a parade. Upon Eldridge’s demise, the panicky onlookers were roused to demand that Mary be put down, whereupon circus owner Charles Sparks faced destroying a beloved animal. Mary is removed by rail to Erwin, which, as the site of the train terminus, is equipped with the heavy cranes necessary to lift and execute an elephant.
Carlton’s script, which had its initial public reading in 2002 as a part of David Alford’s now-defunct Mockingbird Theatre new play series, caught the attention of former People’s Branch artistic director Matt Chiorini. The play was added to the 2006-7 season lineup before Chiorini left Nashville for a new job in Arkansas. “I’m very grateful for that,” says Carlton. “This is what I hope is just another step in the life of the play.”
As staged by Jon Royal, Hanging Mary emerges as not simply a play about a small-time regional circus and the death of one of its biggest stars, but rather as an extended metaphor for society and its ills. Indeed, even the casting is loaded with messages about race and gender, with African American women used to portray the elephants.
“The play’s a liberal grab bag,” says Carlton. “These are issues I want to talk about: the death penalty, cruelty in all its forms, injustice, how we treat each other, how we treat someone who is ‘other,’ and what that means to our sense of right or wrong if we’re dealing with something we fear or don’t quite understand.”
Assembled to tell Carlton’s dark and tragic tale is an excellent local cast that includes veterans Brian Webb Russell and Erin Whited as Sparks and his wife Addie, the well-intentioned owners of a circus that boasted “more clowns than Barnum”; colorful character actor Derrick Phillips as Eldridge; and Buddy Raper in the invented role of McAbee, an old circus hand who provides narration and perspective on the events. Supporting players Stephanie Vickers, Jessejames Locorriere and Michael Montgomery complete the cast.
“Putting the women in the context of chained animals will hopefully translate into their humanity,” says director Royal. “We’re doing a circus play with limited resources, so the actors have to bring it to life. Hanging Mary hits hard and gets straight to the point. It’s not subtle.”
Carlton, long a musician besides being one of Nashville’s most recognizable stage and film performers, has also written the incidental music for Hanging Mary, blending period style with the typically atmospheric strains of the big top. In a slight departure from People’s Branch’s usual stripped-down approach, designer Courtney Lane has provided a set that at least offers some visual semblance of a circus setting. In addition, rear-screen-projected archival photos will help to bring the facts of the story into greater relief.
“My hope,” says playwright Carlton, “is that we’ll challenge the audience. The strong imagery is designed to get them talking. It’s a totally theatrical concept that can be seen as an animal cruelty story, a racial story, a feminist story or as a death penalty story. Those are all my themes and those are all things I care about. The idea is to take away from it whatever gets you in the heart.”
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