The gargantuan tusks are hinted at but never shown. No puppetry or animatronics are used to present Mlima, one of the last “great tuskers” in Kenya. Instead, the legendary elder is brought to life by Ira Mandela Siobhan’s lithe body, dancing his way across the sand-coloured stage. His ground-brushing tusks are intimated by silhouettes of the actor’s limbs and his arms are slathered with chalky paint, an echo of the ivory that makes him so valuable. His billowing ears are suggestions from a wicker chair back, a shadow, elbows triangled outwards.
It is said that if you don’t give an elephant a proper burial, it will haunt you forever. In Lynn Nottage’s wide-reaching and damning indictment of the ivory trade, the memories of dead elephants knot themselves throughout. Directed by Miranda Cromwell, Mlima’s Tale whisks us from the poacher’s attack to the black-market business of selling the tusks. In physical interactions that make arresting tableaux yet are occasionally unhandy in practice, the ever-lurking ghost leaves a white chalky trace on the faces and clothes of the living, marking their part in his murder.
