What the Butler Saw
| Data | |
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| Title: | What the Butler Saw |
| Genus: | Farce ( comedy ) |
| Original language: | English |
| Author: | Joe Orton |
| Premiere: | March 5th 1969 |
| Place of premiere: |
Queen's Theater , West End |
| Place and time of the action: | Examination room of a private clinic |
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What the Butler Saw is a farce by the English playwright Joe Orton (1933–1969). The play premiered on March 5, 1969 at London's Queen's Theater . It was Orton's last work and the second after Funeral Games (1968) to be performed after his assassination. What the Butler Saw is considered the best work by the “master of extreme farce”. Later staging of the play brought highly respected actors such as Kate Winslet and David Tennant first major attention at the beginning of their careers.
action
The piece consists of two acts, the pause does not represent a break, the plot is continuous and coherent. The main character is Dr. Prentice, a psychiatrist trying to seduce his attractive future secretary Geraldine Barclay. At the beginning of the play, Prentice asked Barclay as part of the job interview. As part of the "interview" he persuades her to undress. The situation worsens when Mrs. Prentice enters the room. In order to keep his behavior a secret from his wife, he hides the young woman behind a curtain. However, his wife has her own worries: she also entered into a liaison and is now blackmailed by her love affair, Nicholas Beckett, with explicit photographic evidence of her infidelity. She promises him the secretary position of the clinic, which causes further confusion, for example in the course of the plot Nicholas, Geraldine and a police officer (Sergeant Match) pretend to be members of the opposite sex. The practice of Dr. Prentice is also under investigation by the government, led by Dr. Rance. During the inspection, the chaotic conditions in the clinic come to light. Dr. Rance reports that he wants to use the situation he found as a template for a new book: “The final chapters of my book are knitting together: incest, buggery, outrageous women and strange love-cults catering for depraved appetites. All the fashionable bric-a-brac. “As is typical for a farce , the chaotic confusions in the course of the plot become increasingly absurd from the start, hardly any social taboo remains untouched by Orton's satirical gaze. In the climactic final scene, for example, a severed human penis is shown as "the missing parts of Sir Winston Churchill " ( the missing parts of Sir Winston Churchill presented).
Productions
stage
| year | Theater / ensemble | Director | Dr. Prentice | Mrs. Prentice | Nicholas Beckett | Geraldine Barclay | Dr. Rance | Sergeant Match | Remarks |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1969 (WP) | Queen's Theater ( West End , London ) | Robert Chetwyn | Stanley Baxter | Coral Browne | Hayward Morse | Julia Foster | Ralph Richardson | Peter Bayliss | Production: Lewenstein-Delfont Productions Ltd & HM Tennent Ltd; Design (set, lighting, etc.): Hutchinson Scott |
| 1994 | Royal Exchange Theater | Robert Delamere | David Horovitch | Deborah Norton | Neil Stuke | Kate Winslet | Trevor Baxter | Billy Hartman | |
| Theater Royal, Bath | Phyllida Lloyd | John Alderton | Nicola Pagett | David Tennant | Debra Gillett | Richard Wilson | Jeremy Swift | Production by the Royal National Theater | |
| 1995 | Lyttelton Theater (RNT) | ||||||||
| 2008 | Audimax of the University of Hamburg |
The University Players (Theater Workshop of the Institute for English and American Studies ) |
Production management: Julia Siebrecht; German premiere (with original English text) | ||||||
| 2012 | Vaudeville Theater (West End) | Sean Foley | Tim McInnerny | Samantha Bond | Nick Hendrix | Georgia Moffett | Omid Djalili | Jason Thorpe | strictly limited run of 16 weeks (approx. 130 performances) |
| 2017 | Curve Theater ( Leicester ) | Nikolai Foster | Rufus Hound | Catherine Russell | Jack Holden | Dakota Blue Richards | Jasper Britton | Ravi Aujla | Orton was born in Leicester on January 1, 1933. |
watch TV
The British Broadcasting Corporation adapted the play for their BBC2 series Theater Night . The adaptation was produced by Shaun Sutton and directed by Barry Davis , which first aired on May 24, 1987. The leading roles included Prunella Scales (Mrs. Prentice) and Timothy West (Dr. Rance).
On September 18, 1995, Channel 4 broadcast a short excerpt from the play as part of their Blow Your Mind - See a Show series . The main roles were there Brian Cox (Dr. Prentice), Clive Owen to see (Nicholas Beckett) and others.
Web links
- What the Butler Saw (BBC film) in the Internet Movie Database (English)
Individual evidence
- Paul Taylor: Reviews: Theater - What the Butler Saw Hampstead Theater London HHH . In: The Independent , July 26, 2005. Archived from the original on June 14, 2008. Retrieved November 4, 2008.
- ↑ Review: What the Butler Saw In: LondonTheatre.co.uk, May 16, 2012, accessed December 18, 2017.
- ^ What the Butler Saw . In: Theatricalia . Retrieved March 18, 2015.
- ^ Neil Stuke: Projects . Retrieved March 18, 2015.
- ^ What the Butler Saw In: Theatricalia , accessed December 17, 2017.
- ↑ Newsroom of the University of Hamburg , accessed on December 18, 2017.
- ↑ Cast announced for What the Butler Saw at the Vaudeville Theater In: London Theater Direct on March 16, 2012, accessed on December 17, 2017.