Matara: The Elephant Play

At a crumbling city zoo, an elephant keeper, a security guard and a newly-hired media consultant are arguing over what to do with their main attraction: the aging Sri Lankan elephant Matara. Matara is rapidly deteriorating following the loss of her companion elephant Cheerio, and a petition is circulating to try and force the zoo's management to move her to a sanctuary. Karen, the elephant keeper, argues that the zoo is Matara's home now, after so long away from the wild, and that the elephant is too weak to travel. Romney, the enthusiastic (and stressed) consultant, thinks more about donations and galas rather than Matara's life, while Marcel the security guard empathizes with the protestors even as he must protect the zoo's employees from increasingly volatile protests. Weaving between the perspectives of public relations, the importance of allowing humans to experience animal encounters as well as whether zoos should even exist at all, Conni Massing's latest play takes inspiration from real life debates on captive elephants to ask poignant questions about our relationships with animals and the power dynamics that surround them.