SHORT TAKES : Line in New Play Upsets Mailer

Author Norman Mailer is upset about a line in the new one-man Broadway play “Tru” that alludes to a 29-year-old incident in which the writer allegedly stabbed his wife.

Mailer said in a letter to co-producer Lewis Allen that the reference was “kind of crass,” according to today’s editions of the New York Times.

“It’s an ugly line designed to cater to rich out-of-town yahoos,” Mailer wrote to Allen, who also is husband of the playwright, Jay Presson Allen.

The line that irked Mailer is spoken in the first act by the Truman Capote character, who is worried about his popularity in 1975 after a story of his was published in Esquire magazine.

Capote, played by Robert Morse, is talking on the telephone and tells his lecture agent’s secretary:

“Listen, hon. When Irene gets back in, ask her when Norman Mailer stabbed his wife, how much his fee went up.”

The line refers to when Mailer allegedly stabbed his second wife, Adele Morales, with a penknife after an all-night party at his Manhattan apartment in November, 1960. She declined to press charges.

In reply, Lewis Allen wrote Mailer: “A pretty poor show, kid, for someone who over three decades has assiduously worked at creating the very public image of a provocateur, a tough guy who takes on all comers, a mythic brawler.

“But when a small shot comes your way, you toss your curls and sob ‘foul.’ ”