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I suppose I'm a believer in Original Sin. People are profoundly bad
but irresistibly funny' Joe Orton. This volume contains everything
that Orton wrote for the theatre, radio and television from his
first play in 1964, The Ruffian on the Stair, up to his violent
death in 1967 at the age of 34. It includes his major successes:
Entertaining Mr Sloane, which 'made more blood boil that any other
British play in the last ten years' (The Times); Loot, 'a Freudian
nightmare', which sports with superstitions about death - as well
as life; his farce masterpiece, What the Butler Saw; The Erpingham
Camp, his version of The Bacchae, set in a Butlin's holiday resort;
together with his television plays, Funeral Games and The Good and
Faithful Servant. The volume includes a revealing introduction by
John Lahr, Orton's official biographer."He is the Oscar Wilde of
Welfare State gentility" (Observer)
This volume contains every play written by Joe Orton, who emerged
in the 1960s as the most talented comic playwright in recent
English history. Orton, who was murdered in 1967 at the age of
thirty-four, was considered the direct successor to Wilde, Shaw,
and Coward.
Includes:
The Ruffian on the Stair
Entertaining Mr. Sloane
The Good and Faithful Servant
Loot
The Erpingham Camp
Funeral Games
What the Butler Saw
Entertaining Mr Sloane was first staged in 1964. Despite its
success in performance, and being hailed by Sir Terence Rattigan as
'the best first play' he'd seen in 'thirty odd years', it was not
until the London production of Loot in 1966 - less than a year
before Joe Orton's untimely death - that theatre audiences and
critics began to more fully appreciate the originality of Orton's
elegant, alarming and hilarious writing. Introduced by John Lahr,
the author of Orton's biography Prick up Your Ears, Entertaining Mr
Sloane is now established as an essential part of the repertoire of
the modern theatre.
Characters: 4 male, 2 female Full Length, Farce Interior Set Dr.
Prentice, a psychiatric doctor in an exclusive, private clinic, is
attempting to interview (and seduce) an attractive would-be
secretary, Geraldine. Unwttingly surprised by his wife, he hides
the girl. The affairs multiply as Mrs. Prentice, being seduced and
blackmailed by young bellhop Nicholas Beckett, has promised him the
secretarial post. When a government inspector arrives, chaos,
underpants and cross-dressing lead the charge. The final tableau
reveals "the missing parts of Winston Churchill" held aloft as the
curtain falls. The London premiere at the Queen's Theatre in 1969
starred Coral Browne and Sir Ralph Richardson. The New York
production later won the Obie Award as Best Foreign Play of The
Season. "Hilarious, outrageous...It dazzles!...Wonderfully verbal,
toying with words as if they were firecrackers."- The New York
Times "Brilliant, witty, the funniest show so far this season."
-NBC TV "Madly antic humor."-Associated Press "Hilarious...Joe
Orton's best comedy."-CBS TV
A black farce masterpiece, Loot follows the fortunes of two young
thieves, Hal and Dennis. Dennis is a hearse driver for an
undertaker. They have robbed the bank next door to the funeral
parlour and have returned to Hal's home to hide-out with the loot.
Hal's mother has just died and the pair put the money in her
coffin, hiding the body elsewhere in the house. With the arrival of
Inspector Truscott, the thickened plot turns topsy-turvy. Playing
with all the conventions of popular farce, Orton creates a world
gone mad and examines in detail English attitudes at mid-century.
The play has been called a Freudian nightmare, which sports with
superstitions about death - and life. It is regularly produced in
professional and amateur productions. First produced in London in
1966, LOOT was hailed as "the most genuinely quick-witted, pungent
and sprightly entertainment by a new, young British playwright for
a decade" (Sunday Telegraph)
"Joe Orton's last play, What the Butler Saw, will live to be
accepted as a comedy classic of English literature" (Sunday
Telegraph) The chase is on in this breakneck comedy of licensed
insanity, from the moment when Dr Prentice, a psychoanalyst
interviewing a prospective secretary, instructs her to undress. The
plot of What the Butler Saw contains enough twists and turns,
mishaps and changes of fortune, coincidences and lunatic logic to
furnish three or four conventional comedies. But however the six
characters in search of a plot lose the thread of the action -
their wits or their clothes - their verbal self-possession never
deserts them. Hailed as a modern comedy every bit as good as
Wilde's The Importance of Being Earnest, Orton's play is regularly
produced, read and studied. What the Butler Saw was Orton's final
play."He is the Oscar Wilde of Welfare State gentility" (Observer)
Published fifty years after the premiere of Entertaining Mr Sloane
in 1964, and with a new introduction, this anniversary edition
offers an opportunity to reappraise Joe Orton's reputation, and the
status of his first major play, from a twenty-first century
perspective. When it first appeared in the Swinging Sixties,
Orton's satire on social and sexual hypocrisy both scandalized and
delighted audiences. Its mix of sexuality and violence was
explosive. Within a year, the play was being performed around the
world and went on to be adapted for film and television,
establishing Orton as a major voice and this play as one of the
most ground-breaking of the century. This anniversary edition
features previously unpublished material from the Joe Orton
Archive, an interview with director Nick Bagnall, and an
introduction by Emma Parker, Senior Lecturer in English at the
University of Leicester.
Five outstanding plays from the British theatre of the 1960s. This
volume contains major works by five of the most important
playwrights ot emerge during the late fifties and early sixties.
Bold, challenging and iconoclastic, these plays are landmarks of
post-war British theatre. Roots by Arnold Wesker focuses on the
homecoming of young Beatie Bryant who returns to her family of
Norfolk farm workers with stories of her boyfriend Ronnie. Serjeant
Musgrave's Dance by John Arden is set in a mining town in the 19th
century, with a group of soldiers returned from a colonial war. But
when Musgrave is asked to keep the peace with the colliery workers,
he decides to do so in a rather unusual way. Loot by Joe Orton is a
brilliant parody of the skeleton-in-the-cupboard crime genre,
exploding the very notions of English decency, good citizenry and
traditional 'positions'. Edward Bond's Early Morning re-imagines
the time of Victoria and Albert caught up in a military coup
plotted by Disraeli. Peter Barnes' Ruling Class describes the fall
out in an aristocratic family after the 14th Earl commits suicide
and leaves his estate to a schizophrenic Franciscan friar who is
under the illusion that he is Jesus.
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Diarios (Spanish, Paperback)
Joe Orton; Edited by John Lahr; Translated by Angela Perez; Prologue by Luis Antonio De Villena
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R692
Discovery Miles 6 920
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Written during the last eight months of his life, these diaries are
an unfiltered narration of the life of Joe Orton, the extremely
successful and famous British playwright. On August 9, 1967, Orton
was murdered in London by Kenneth Halliwell, his lover of 16 years,
who bludgeoned him with a hammer and then immediately committed
suicide. Halliwell left a note that said that all would be
explained if the police read Orton's diaries. In the diaries, Orton
narrates his literary success, his sexual escapades--at his
mother's funeral, with a dwarf in Brighton, and, extensively, in
Tangiers--and the breakdown of his "marriage" to Halliwell, the
relationship that transformed his life and ultimately ended it.
"Escritos durante los ultimos ocho meses de su vida, estos diarios
son una narracion sin restriccion alguna de la vida de Joe Orton,
el sumamente exitoso y famoso dramaturgo ingles. El 9 de agosto de
1967, en Londres, Orton fue asesinado a martillazos por Kenneth
Halliwell, su amante de 16 anos, quien se suicido inmediatamente
despues. Halliwell dejo una nota que decia que todo quedaria
explicado cuando la policia leyera los diarios de Orton. En los
diarios, Orton narra su exito literario, sus aventuras sexuales--en
el funeral de su madre, con un enano en Brighton y, profusamente,
en Tanger--y la descomposicion de su "matrimonio" a Halliwell, la
relacion que le cambio la vida y que termino por destruirla."
A black farce masterpiece, Loot follows the fortunes of two young
thieves, Hal and Dennis. Dennis is a hearse driver for an
undertaker. They have robbed the bank next door to the funeral
parlour and have returned to Hal's home to hide-out with the loot.
Hal's mother has just died and the pair put the money in her
coffin, hiding the body elsewhere in the house. With the arrival of
Inspector Truscott, the thickened plot turns topsy-turvy. Playing
with all the conventions of popular farce, Orton creates a world
gone mad and examines in detail English attitudes at mid-century.
The play has been called a Freudian nightmare, which sports with
superstitions about death - and life. It is regularly produced in
professional and amateur productions. First produced in London in
1966, Loot was hailed as "the most genuinely quick-witted, pungent
and sprightly entertainment by a new, young British playwright for
a decade" (Sunday Telegraph). The Student Edition offers a plot
summary, full commentary, character notes and questions for study,
besides a chronology and bibliography.
"To be young, good-looking, healthy, famous, comparatively rich,
and happy is surely going against nature". When Joe Orton
(1933-1967) wrote those words in his diary in May 1967, he was
being hailed as the greatest comic playwright since Oscar Wilde for
his darkly hilarious Entertaining Mr. Sloane and the farce hit
Loot, and was completing What the Butler Saw; but less than three
months later, his longtime companion, Kenneth Halliwell, smashed
Orton's skull in with a hammer before killing himself. The Orton
Diaries, written during his last eight months, chronicle in a
remarkably candid style his outrageously unfettered life: his
literary success, capped by an Evening Standard Award and overtures
from the Beatles; his sexual escapades - at his mother's funeral,
with a dwarf in Brighton, and, extensively, in Tangiers; and the
breakdown of his sixteen-year "marriage" to Halliwell, the
relationship that transformed and destroyed him. Edited with a
superb introduction by John Lahr, The Orton Diaries is his crowning
achievement.
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