In the following essay, Holladay and Watt 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 Award, and the New York Drama Critics Circle Award as the best play of the year; but its success in New York, and in London the previous year, can hardly be attributed to the reputation of its little-known author or to the drawing power of the actors in the principal parts. Moreover...