“Audiences Are Composed of Sentimental Necrophiles”

Notes on Norman Mailer’s The Deer Park: A Play

Abstract

The Deer Park: A Play is Norman Mailer’s only full-length work for the stage. Adapted from Mailer’s third novel (published in 1955), The Deer Park: A Play has received little critical attention from Mailer scholars. Originally staged Off Broadway in 1967, the play received, according to one of Mailer’s biographers, “mixed to negative” reviews, and has rarely been revived. Mailer himself, however, regarded the play as a significant work, and it rewards study. This article discusses the development of The Deer Park: A Play over ten years, before summarising contemporary and subsequent critical engagements with the play. The subsequent section reads the play alongside its source novel to argue that both texts offer a savage critique of the “homogenisation” of mid-century American society. The article goes on to discuss the various paratexts that Mailer appended to the published playscript, reading them in tandem with the play’s critique of American society. The article then notes crucial tonal and narrative differences between novel and play. Jasna Potoc˚nik Topler Norman Mailer: Reporter, Travel Writer, Critic and “Provocateur-in-Chief ” Norman Mailer had a profound impact, not only on American and world literature, but he also had a role in American politics, and, wider, in intercultural dialogues and academic discourses, including translation and travel writing studies. Many of the themes he wrote about are still relevant today; some are, such as freedom, democracy, and critical debate, eternal. Despite his very strong criticism, Mailer shows hope and faith in his country. He was not only a writer, reporter, and “provocateur-in-chief ”, he was one of the most popular public intellectuals and a literary genius, whose works had legacy power far beyond the scope of literature. With Mailer, considering the themes of his works, the diverse audiences across the globe were familiarized with American culture in the broadest sense, and they also gained the opportunity to mirror their own values, way and quality of living, education system, political system, justice system, question their political and economic system, as well as get a grasp of diversity. All this also matters when Mailer’s literary heritage is evaluated as a tourism resource, which is another aspect of Mailer’s place in the world literature.