er, and Anne Bancraft all stared in the movie and did an excellent job. Although the movie was as popular as the play, it was extemely different. One of the major problems with the movie is the makeup of John Merrick, the main character. Because it is a movie they can not rely on the theatricalness of the play. Merrick's character is forced to where a horrible costume which makes him almost to difficult to look at. This makes it very different from the play because in the play it is extremely important that the actor does nothing to make himself look the way the real John Merrick looked. In 1980, in one of the most famous productions of The Elephant Man, the main character of John Merrick was played by David Bowie. Merrick's character is extremely difficult to play. The entire play, including the tittle is based on the deformities of John Merrick, yet the actor who preforms his roll is forced to do so using no padding or makeup to make himself look deformed. They must rely solely on their talent to persuade the audience to believe how terrible he looks. It is imperative to the play that they do not ware any kind of costume to make themselves look deformed. The only thing they are allowed to do is bend their bodies. Anything else is believed to take away form the play tremendously. The Elephant Man is a true story inspired by a man named John Merrick. Merrick was born in 1863 and died in 1890 at the young age of only 27. He suffered from a genetic disorder known as nevrotibromatosis. His body was grotesquely deformed. His head was thirty-six inches in circumference, and he had large lumps all over his body. He had no use of his right arm but, his left arm was normal. His body was so deformed he could hardly walk, and he talked with an accent that made him difficult to understand. The only part of Merrick that was completely normal and functioning were his sex organs, but because he was so horrifying he was never abl...
