When I delight in the scathing wit of British playwright Joe Orton, I also think of John Lennon.
What if they had both lived?
Would today's Everyone's-Famous-for-15 Minutes-Reality leave Lennon and Orton guffawing in the Great Beyond?
How ironic that in 1967 Orton was writing a screenplay for the Beatles called Prick up Your Ears when he was bludgeoned to death by hammer [Maxwell's Silver Hammer?] while sleeping, courtesy of long-time lover Kenneth Halliwell.
(See the film Prick Up Your Ears.)
"Ears" is the typical Orton anagram, as the screenplay featured The Beatles doing all sorts of "Ortonesque" things - oodles of sex, drugs and petty crimes - while cavorting around swinging London. Manager Brian Epstein found the script "not suitable", and the film was not to be.
Still, Orton was the coolest playwright in England in the '60s because he rebelled against his society.
From an early age, the easily-bored John "Joe" Orton made shocking people his raison d'etre. Hailing from a working class family in Leicester, which Halliwell wryly named 'the gutter', Orton opted out of school, couldn't keep a regular job, but had one ongoing interest: the theatre.
Acting beckoned, and Orton eventually joined RADA (the Royal Academy of Dramatic Arts), where, at 18, he met Kenneth Halliwell, 25. Orton found RADA mostly "rubbish" but Halliwell fascinating, as his new-found foil nurtured Orton's satirical tendencies.
They became lovers and engaged in many a lewd lark, from "cottaging" in London's loos to defacing library books. For the latter, the two went to prison, where Orton immersed himself in reading, and soon student outshone teacher as Halliwell, a willing Salieri to Orton's ultra-cruel Mozart, began to resent his creation.
Orton's talent for farcical black comedy flourished as he skillfully shredded social conventions, from the law in Loot to family loyalty versus libido in Entertaining Mr. Sloane. His EMS just closed a successful revival at New York's Roundabout Theatre Company.
What the Butler Saw is the most popular Orton; the crazy farce, in which Orton, with immoral aplomb, makes a mockery of the psychiatric profession, is performed the world over.
Lesser known Erpingham Camp, based on The Bacchae of Euripides and the tale of Pride, is a subversive look into England's holiday camps (likely Butlins) as an institution, and what happens when order goes awry. Ruffian on the Stair (a less charming Mr. Sloane) concerns a mysterious visitor who lodges at a couple's flat, with chaotic results. This was also included in Orton's 1967 Royal Court Theatre double playbill entitled Crimes of Passion and was presented in 2003 by London's
Galleon Theatre Company.
He may not be everyone's cuppa tea, but, like Red Zinger, Joe Orton caters to insatiable tastes.
Coral Andrews - Coral Andrews is an independent media professional who has been writing in Canada for over 30 years.
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