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SOURCE: Rusinko, Susan. “What the Butler Saw.” In Joe Orton, pp. 97-115. New York: Twayne Publishers, 1995.
In the following essay, Rusinko reviews previous critical opinion of What the Butler Saw, connecting the play with a theatrical tradition of farce and with the social unrest of the 1960s.
RANCE:
… I've published a monograph on the subject [madness]. I wrote it at the university. On the advice of my tutor. A remarkable man. Having failed to achieve madness himself he took to teaching it to others.
PRENTICE:
And were you his prize pupil?
RANCE:
There were some more able than I.
PRENTICE:
Where are they now?
RANCE:
In mental institutions.
PRENTICE:
Running them?
RANCE:
For the most part.
(Plays [Complete Plays], 386)
Had Orton lived to see the first production of What the Butler Saw, he might have celebrated a kind of madness in the ironies associated with the posthumous production...
This section contains 7,993 words (approx. 27 pages at 300 words per page) |
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