The Mailer Review/Volume 13, 2019/NORRIS

Written by
Bonnie Culver

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Note: This excerpt is taken from a one-woman play based upon Norris Church Mailer’s memoir, A Ticket to the Circus. The show is scheduled to premiere at The Edgemar Center for the Arts in Santa Monica, CA in 2020, directed and produced by Michelle Danner and starring Anne Archer. The photos listed and all stage directions are placeholders for the final choices. As with any production, the director and actor will find the exact piece/time/place for her handling of any (if used) props or sets. The photos represent Norris’s memories, she never “sees” them as they are projected on a screen above the stage throughout the play.

SET: A podium is center with a curtain closed behind it. Time, September, 2010. Projection screen shows the cover of Norris’s book, A Ticket to the Circus.

AT RISE: Norris stands at the podium, frail, bone thin. She wears a scarf around long flowing red wig and a bright, billowy, long dress. She has begun her reading.

NORRIS

I’m reading from the chapter where I first meet Norman. It all takes place in Arkansas. Francis Gwaltney (aka Fig to Norman) was an old Army buddy of Norman’s and I was a friend of his wife, Ecey. All they talked about for weeks was that the great Norman Mailer was coming to Arkansas to visit and speak to Fig’s writing class. They went on and on about Norman. Pulitzer prize winner. Best-selling author of more than twenty novels, including THE war novel, The Naked and the Dead. Of course, I was anxious to meet anyone who was as famous as Ecey and Fig said he was, so I wormed my way into coming over to the party they were throwing for him. My excuse? I’d bought Mailer’s book Marilyn and I wanted him to sign it. Crazy thing is I’d bought it by mistake. You know those Book-of-the-Month Club cards? I’d forgotten to send mine back and Marilyn arrived and I kept it. I’d heard of Mailer, but I’d never read any of his books. Not even this one. (pausing, coughing, sips some water)

Uh . . . So, I arrive. Late. Wearing hip-huggers and a voile shirt tied up, showing some belly. Wearing these bear trap shoes that add over an inch to my height.

SCREENSHOT OF NORRIS IN OUTFIT

I’m closer to six feet tall that night. Everybody else is dressed up. I think that’s all you need to know up to this point. (putting on her glasses, reading)

“And there he was. St. Norman!” (laughing, as an aside)

Really! (pausing, reading again)

. . .