The Elephant Man | Viewing the Elephant Man
In the following essay, the authors examine the popularity of both the stage and the film versions of The Elephant Man.
Man stands amaz’d to see his deformity in any other creature but himself. [John Webster, The Duchess of Malfi]
John Webster is not entirely correct: men in particular have stood ‘‘amaz’d’’ at their own deformity, as the production in 1979 of Bernard Pomerance’s drama The Elephant Man exemplifies. Based on the life of John Merrick, a famous Victorian sideshow performer hideously disfigured by neurofibromatosis, the play garnered Tony Awards, Obies, the Drama Desk...
[The entire page is 5236 words long]
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