SOULPEPPER’S production of Joe Orton’s classic farce What the Butler Saw, though a fine production, demonstrates how dated this script has become since the riotous days when the play first caused an uproar in Britain more than a quarter century ago.
I have always been intrigued by Orton: one of his earlier plays, Loot, was given a marvellous production only last year by the same great theatre troupe.
Inarguably, there are dozens of very funny lines sprinkled throughout: in the first minute, Dr. Prentice, a lecherous psychiatrist (played well by Blair Williams) responds to his prospective new secretary’s statement that she has “no idea who my father was” by declaring,“I’d better be frank, Miss Barclay. I can’t employ you if you’re in any way miraculous.”
And toward the end of the play, that doctor cries out to another psychiatrist (Graham Harley), “A husband must be allowed to put his wife into a straitjacket. It’s one of the few pleasures left in modern marriage!”
Director Jim Warren showed his gift for directing Orton last year, and his cast here is near perfect for a non-stop, rat-tat-tat farce: the always reliable Oliver Dennis makes a hilarious London Bobby. Brenda Robins and Nicole Underhay are both excellent as the wife and the prospective lover, respectively, of Dr.Prentice.
The problem? Much of the jokes fall flat or are too often “in gags” recognizable only to a Carnaby-Street/Beatles-era London. The frequent opening and closing and slamming of doors works well, but the gunshot wounds, endless cross-dressing, people running about endlessly in their underwear, along with the mockery of religious belief and the obsession with the private parts of Winston Churchill, are often tiresome, noisy and more “high- school dirty” than truly witty.
I was glad to have seen what most scholars believe was Orton’s best play, yet saddened that Butler has become so dated.
If you wish to see what sent the British public into actual riots four decades ago and how far the world seems to have come since, in sophistication and tolerance of blasphemy, you may not be disappointed. But, I kept thinking of how nearly every single line in Oscar Wilde’s magnificent farce The Importance of Being Earnest is uproariously golden, over a century after its premiere.
What the Butler Saw closes Sept. 18.
This ain’t your Dad’s Muppet Show
Have you experienced the genius of the internationally acclaimed, award-winning Ronnie Burkett? Were you in awe of — and profoundly entertained by — his memorable, moving and artistically glorious shows Tinka’s New Dress, Street of Blood and Happy?
Alberta’s loss was our gain when this world-class giant of puppetry for adults moved to our city,and I am counting the days until his latest show, Billy Twinkle: Requiem for a Golden Boy, has its too-brief run at the Factory Theatre (Sept. 24 to Oct.24).
According to Burkett, he has designed and built nearly three dozen new, exquisite puppets, and he will perform all the voices, assisted by his partner, composer John Alcorn, who wrote both music and lyrics. Billy Twinkle is a cruise-ship puppeteer who is fired, “contemplates a watery demise” and is inspired by a now-deceased mentor (a ghostly hand puppet) who drives him to re-enact his life as a puppet show, giving him the strength to go on.
“It’s A Christmas Carol crossed with It’s a Wonderful Life," Burkett says chuckling.
