Word: orton
(lookup in dictionary)
(lookup stats)
Dates: all
Sort By: most recent first
(reverse)
HAVE YOU heard of Joe Orton? Tate? Joplin? Hendrix? Separating individual merit from phantasmagoric death-legend is the whole problem in these cases. If you are asked who Orton is, you had better be ready with information: he was a homosexual, a British playwright killed in a ritual hammer slaying in 1967. What comes up second when Orton's name is mentioned is the fact that he wrote Loot, Entertaining Mr. Sloane and several other black comedies. Loot, you see, has a corpse for its focus, just as Orton's life, ironically and grotesquely, had in the final tally...
Given the quirky necrophilia which taints Orton's reputation, I can be excused for writing a review which is actually an obituary. The Loeb Ex last week presented a very interesting production of Orton's Loot. In case you didn't see this play in that tomb-like barn of a theater, you should be reminded that the Loeb Ex is very much alive as a casual, but uncommonly vigorous forum for amateur theatrics. And this particular Loeb Ex company did an admirable job making Orton's coruscating wit work to its full potential as entertainment...
Death is not, of course, a particularly original theme in this genre, but Orton doesn't strive for chills as Pinter did in Accident. Instead, he applies black humor within the blissfully sloppy and easy-going frame of character-types which are so familiar that they never really threaten to be ominous: The Sherlock Holmes sleuth who stalks, magnifying glass in hand, the unctuous undertaker who speaks of "floral tributes," the cool-as-ice nurse who hides a whopping sex drive. With characters such as these, each occupationally linked to death, but in funny, obsessive ways, Orton spins a yarn...
Murderously Funny. Orton aimed to outrage, but he also calculated to delight. His dialogue is wickedly original and his vision manages to combine the commonplace and the diabolic. It is as if by loosening a floorboard one could look down at flames. No author could demand a more empathetic director than Douglas Hickox, who understands the Ortonic core: the road to hell is paved with good inventions. The whole cast performs with ease; the kinkier the farce, the straighter their faces. Their achievement is that most difficult feat: a funny murder made murderously funny...
Three years ago an eerie footnote was added to Entertaining Mr. Sloane. A young writer who delighted in mocking violence was found in his London flat beaten to death by his roommate -who later committed suicide. Joe Orton, who was 34 at his death, could have written the scene. Instead, he experienced...