Inspired by a combination of documentaries about modern-day prostitution, paintings by Henri de Toulouse-Lautrec, and bizarre feverous dreams, Éléphant plunges us into the world of CLÉRÈSE; a thirteen year-old who has grown up with an absent mother and a myth of a father in a late 19th century Paris brothel – and who has recently fallen pregnant with what CLÉRÈSE believes to be the fetus of a baby elephant.
Act One takes us through the events leading up to CLÉRÈSE’s pregnancy: her first period, her first sexual encounter, the first time she hears her Father’s voice, and her first dream prophecy of the baby animal to be.
Act Two begins five months later with a CLÉRÈSE who is large enough to be nine months pregnant and who does not know the name or the whereabouts of the young man whom she believes is the father. Rumors circulate that CLÉRÈSE was raped by her father, CLÉRÈSE’s mother’s depression worsens, and pressure mounts for CLÉRÈSE to have her baby aborted and start working as a prostitute. Despite all of this, CLÉRÈSE clings to her dreams and the promise of a family with her baby elephant to be – until a disastrous encounter with the boy she believes is the father of her child and a bloody and feverous premature birth force her to face a new reality.
Recovering from the birth, oscillating between dreams and actuality, CLÉRÈSE says goodbye to her lover and to her baby, and chooses to wake up. When she does, her mother is by her side, jolted by the recent events and ready to take her daughter out of the brothel.
Éléphant addresses loneliness, trauma, and how we survive through them, as the brutal journey of CLÉRÈSE’s life is made bearable through the honey-drenched dream of an elephant.