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What the Butler Saw |
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Author: Joe Orton
Reviewer: David Roberts for Theatre Reviews Limited |
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Traditional drawing room farce (with butler) gives way to the psychiatrist's consulting room farce (with doctor) in Joe Orton's final play "What The Butler Saw." First staged in 1969, two years after Mr. Orton's death, this first rate play has been revived by The New Group and is enjoying a successful six week run at the Theatre at St. Clement's. Although not perfect, this auspicious production comes very close to the spirit Joe Orton intended for this "in your face" story of sanity gone awry.
Everything in "What The Butler Saw" needs to be "topsy-turvy" without the actors giving any hint that what is swirling around them is absolute witlessness. All that is deemed to be decent is shown to be less than so. The innocent commit the most heinous of crimes. All that is civil and orderly has the seamiest of underbellies. And the actors, though participating fully in the madness, need to appear totally unfazed.
  
The New Group's cast is irreproachable in its attempt to carry out this difficult task. It is not easy to stage a true farce and this innovative company is to be sincerely commended for choosing Orton's challenging play for its 2000-2001 Season. Though the pace of the action and dialogue needs to be quickened considerably (this is of significant concern in this production and needs be addressed by the very capable creative team) "What The Butler Saw" works because of the skill of this truly ensemble cast, its director, and the work itself.
What Joe Orton wrote over thirty years ago is able to stand on its own in the present and has the internal structural strength to overcome any minor flaws imposed upon it by those who attempt to bring the play's words to life. And this strength does not derive from the play's plot, but rather from Orton's predilection and his iconoclastic spirit.
Joe Orton lived and died struggling against an establishment that doggedly considered his homosexuality aberrant. His body of work, including this brilliant farce, was and is a wonderfully rich "acting out" against such self-righteous bigotry. Orton was always able to show "normal" society to be truly aberrant and most governments and religions more oppressive toward than supportive of their citizens and parishioners.
Consequently, in "What The Butler Saw" human sexuality becomes blessedly confused and madness is most often mistaken for sanity. One physician becomes bent on committing his colleague to the psychiatric ward and reduces misogyny and sexism and rape to mere trifles. When addressing the innocent Geraldine Barclay (Chloe Sevigny) whom he wants to commit to the hospital merely because she has applied for a job and ends up nude on Dr. Prentice's examining table, Dr. Rance (Peter Frechette) says to Ms. Barclay, "please accept your condition without tears and without abusing those in authority."
This type of exchange, typical of this piece, is clearly biographical for the playwright whose pain never impressed any of his oppressors. Indeed, all that transpires in the consulting room is archetypical (and allegorical) of Joe Orton's life in a society which chose neither to care for or support his almost clairvoyant artistic vision and his lifelong dance with the demons of despair. When Dr. Prentice tells Miss Barclay she can cure her defeatist attitude through "clean living and teaching [herself] woodworking" the audience can be sure such unprofessional and blatantly silly advice probably once came from one of Joe Orton's care givers during his own life.
Though it is difficult to give the plot of "What The Butler Saw" justice in the short space of a review, imagine the following being played out before the audience.
Dr. Prentice (Dylan Baker), we learn late in the play, finds a locket attached to a Pomeranian's collar and later places the same locket in the hand of a hotel chambermaid as he departs their sexual tryst (more pointedly, he apparently rapes her). She becomes pregnant, gives birth to the doctor's twins and, unable to care for them, gives them up for adoption. Before the children leave she gives each of them half of the locket. That is the play's past.
In the present (you guessed it!) we (and the characters) discover that the chambermaid has become Prentice's wife Mrs. Prentice (played here with the correct clueless charisma by Lisa Emery) and the twins have reappeared as the young woman applying to be the doctor's secretary (Geraldine Barclay played to perfection by Chloe Sevigny) and as the young man (Nicholas Beckett played in a marvelous asexual way by Karl Geary) who has a tryst with Mrs. Prentice in the same hotel where she had been assaulted years ago. Since the doctor wants to have sex with the applicant, and his wife has an encounter with the bellhop, both parents have (presumably unknowingly) committed incest with their children.
Alcohol is consumed ad nauseam to deaden the reality of undisclosed insanity. Miss Barclay is "twice declared insane in the same day." Men practicing medicine create senseless theories to explain simple human behaviors. Everyone gets undressed at least once, often under the pretext of "being examined." What pretends to be rational is clearly irrational and what passes for sanity is found insane. Psychiatrists assert that "olive branches can be used as offensive weapons." Even the police sergeant (played Keystone Cop to the hilt by Max Baker) seem to forget what law enforcement might have been in days gone by.
At one point Dr. Rance exclaims "the bounds of decency have long been overstepped in this house." Joe Orton does all he can in "What The Butler Saw" to overstep all theatrical bounds of decency and in so doing has created one of the most decent plays in the British (or American) repertoire.
Derek McLane's set is functional and beautiful, replete with running water and an octagonal skylight. The offstage dispensary, garden, and hospital become real to the audience as the actors come and go in various states of disrepair. Mattie Ullrich's costumes recreate 1960s England with precision, with one very minor exception. When Karl Geary (as Nicholas Beckett) puts his feet up at the very top of the play the audience sees a style of shoe sole that probably did not exist in the period of the play. Lights and sound as designed by James Vermeulen and Ken Travis respectively serve the cast well. Scott Elliott's creative (and often clever) direction falls short only in his unwillingness to move the action along at the needed "farce pace."
Let's hope The New Group can extend the run of "What The Butler Saw" so many more patrons can see Joe Orton as he was meant to be seen.
Reviewed on Wednesday, November 29, 2000
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By Joe Orton. Directed by Scott Elliott. Set by Derek McLane; costumes by Mattie Ullrich; lights by James Vermeulen; sound by Ken Travis; production stage manager, Valerie A. Peterson. Presented by The New Group (Scott Elliott/Artistic Director, Andy Goldberg/Associate Artistic Director, Elizabeth Timperman/Producing Director, Jill Bowman/General Manager) at the Theatre at St. Clement's, 423 West 46th Street (between 9th and 10th Avenues). Performance schedule: Tuesday through Saturday at 8:00 p.m., with matinee performances on Saturday at 2:00 p.m. and Sunday at 3:00 p.m. Tickets are $25.00-$35.00 and are available through Ticket Central at (212) 279-4200. Subscriptions for The New Group 2000-2001 Season can be arranged by calling (212) 691-6730.
WITH: Dylan Baker (Dr. Prentice), Max Baker (Sergeant Match), Lisa Emery (Mrs. Prentice), Peter Frechette (Dr. Rance), Karl Geary (Nicholas Beckett), and Chloe Sevigny (Geraldine Barclay).
WHAT THE BUTLER SAW EXTENDS THROUGH DECEMBER 31ST. Beginning Wednesday, December 13th, the show will play as follows (All tickets will be $45.00): Wednesday, December 13th 8:00 PM; Thursday, December 14th 8:00 PM; Friday, December 15th 8:00 PM; Saturday, December 16th 2:00 & 8:00 PM; Sunday, December 17th 2:30 & 8:00 PM Monday, December 18th DARK; Tuesday, December 19th 8:00 PM; Wednesday, December 20th 2:00 & 8:00 PM; Thursday, December 21st 8:00 PM; Friday, December 22nd 2:00 & 8:00 PM; Saturday, December 23rd 2:00 & 8:00 PM; Sunday, December 24th DARK; Monday, December 25th DARK; Tuesday, December 26th 8:00 PM; Wednesday, December 27th 2:00 & 8:00 PM; Thursday, December 28th 8:00 PM; Friday, December 29th 8:00 PM; Saturday, December 30th 2:00 & 8:00 PM; Sunday, December 31st 7:00 PM (New Year's Eve-Final Performance).
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