What the Butler Saw. By Joe Orton. Directed by Liz Bradley. Canberra REP. Naone Carrel Auditorium, Canberra REP Theatre, Acton. Bookings 6257 1950. No online bookings. Until September 26.
Joe Orton's What the Butler Saw had its first performance in London in 1969, nearly two years after he was murdered by his partner Kenneth Halliwell.
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Orton's career as a professional playwright was short (1964 to 1967) and his output small. His radio play, The Ruffian on the Stair, was broadcast on the BBC in 1964, and other work included Up Against It, an unproduced screenplay for The Beatles. His best known works are three full-length plays: before What the Butler Saw came Entertaining Mr Sloane (1964) and Loot (1965). All three have endured as classics of British theatre. "Ortonesque" became part of the language, an adjective to describe similarly dark and scandalous comedies.
What the Butler Saw did not go down well with those presumably expecting a traditional English bedroom farce. And the appearance of a sensitive part of a statue of Winston Churchill probably did not go down well either.
But it's a terrific example of 1960s subversion and reworking, as what was a rather tired genre (think the Carry On films) is opened up to new thinking about heterosexuality and power and male hetero voices.
Male power is in full roar as the play opens. In a medical clinic that deals with problems of the mind, Dr Prentice (David Cannell) is showing rather more interest in the flesh as he demands that prospective secretary Geraldine Barclay (Zoe Swan) undress and lie down on the examination couch. Said couch is equipped with curtains so that the reveals and conceals demanded of farce can be achieved.
Geraldine expects a job interview but encounters harassment. Shades of #MeToo, but these are ironically batted away in humorous fashion, a thankless role nicely done by Swan.
Of course there is a Mrs Prentice (a strongly focused performance from Lainie Hart), who arrives trailing concealed scandal - which her seducer, Nicholas Beckett (Glenn Brighenti), a seedy but cheery young bellhop from a nearby hotel, is happy to blackmail her about. Hart is particularly good at the fashionable poses of the 1960s and fascinates with Mrs Prentice's absentmindedly self-conscious arranging and rearranging of herself while she deals with an indifferent husband and her pursuit of a complicated sex life.
Dr Rance (Peter Holland) arrives out of the blue to conduct an inspection of the clinic and ups the farcical antics. In Holland's performance he's not quite as menacing as he might be, but he provides a lunatic commentary with some erratic views that make his medical status alarmingly questionable. And of course the other authority figure who arrives is a policeman, the stolid Sergeant Match (Thomas Hyslop).
Director Liz Bradley keeps all of this in increasingly chaotic order as the tropes of this dark comedy are played out. Quentin Mitchell's solid set provides the necessary multiple doors and a surprise or two for the surreal finale augmented by a few more surprises from Nathan Sciberras' lighting.
On opening night the pacing flagged a little in the build-up to the climax. And even with a small, socially distanced audience, farce demands rather more playing to the audience than some of the cast do. A touch of One Man,Two Guvnors would not go amiss. And there perhaps needs to be a rethink of the look of a vital prop that makes a dramatic appearance at the end. Theatrical timidity shouldn't play a part.
Given that farce has its origins in Greek comedy, where the costumes for the male characters proudly sported the phallus as part of their costume, more might be necessary to suggest the Great Man. However, this production shows that there's more to Joe Orton's play than curtains and underwear, and Canberra REP are to be commended for reminding us of his savage insights.