‘A Frustrated Actor’

Abstract

Mailer’s intimation that the profession of acting and that of writing may possess important analogies with regard to the form of his fictions, was first hinted at in ‘Superman Comes to the Supermarket’. In this essay, Mailer was absorbed with the theory of acting rather that putting those theories into practise. In 1967 he ventured into the theatre with a dramatic adaptation of The Deer Park,¹ and produced, directed and performed in two films: Wild go and Beyond the Law. In an essay occasioned by the filming of Wild go called ‘Some Dirt in the Talk’, Mailer discusses his theories. A good actor, according to him, has an attachment to the reality before him, by pushing himself into styles of personality which are not quite himself but which will provide a more effective mode for handling events of the day. Like a good actor, the personae of Mailer’s writing must be able to sift and select from the context of their acting in order to convey the truth of a situation. In 1971, Mailer’s film Maidstone which he had produced, directed and performed in four years earlier, was released. He also published an essay on this film in which he explains some of the difficulties of putting these theories into practice. Mailer realised that in evolving a persona whose style of acting would convey the reality—the truth—of a situation, ‘It was as if there was a law that a person could not be himself in front of a camera unless he pretended to be someone other than himself’.²