ARTS . Theater Review

Brits and Pieces

The edgy Curio Theatre Company briskly adapts a forgotten farce.


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Published: Apr 29, 2008

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Joe Orton's last play, What the Butler Saw, was overshadowed by his shocking death (at his hammer-wielding lover's hand) in 1967 and a disastrous London première. Forty years on, it's a naughty, clever farce about sexuality and psychiatry, and an unlikely but enjoyable choice by West Philly's edgy, young Curio Theatre Company.

Orton constructs a classic plot of mistaken identities, cross-dressing disguises, multiple doorways and elaborate lies, beginning, of course, with a philandering husband: Dr. Prentice (Ken Opdenaker) insists that potential secretary Geraldine (Erika Hicks) disrobe for an examination.

When wife (Aetna Gallager, hilariously sloppy as her character drinks more and more) interrupts with a dry tale of seduction by randy bellhop Nicholas (Delante G. Keys), she ends up in Geraldine's dress. Dr. Rance (C.J. Keller), Prentice's "immediate superior in madness," arrives to evaluate his practice, and Prentice passes off Geraldine as a patient. The requisite policeman (Jerry Rudasill) further complicates matters — and no, there's no butler.

Director Liam Castellan's production moves briskly, not always managing the play's relentless build — Act 1 doesn't end on the required high note — but guiding an energetic cast who articulate Orton's devious wit well. They struggle against a distracting echo in Curio's new sanctuary home, perhaps exacerbated by Paul Kuhn's tall, handsome (though bare-walled) set. I'm no expert, but maybe they need to consult one, since their previous show in the cavernous space, The Odyssey, had no walled set and didn't bounce sound like an empty gymnasium.

Once our ears adjust, we hear those crazy Orton lines, delivered with the clipped tone of apparent British sanity: "Just when one least expects it, the unexpected happens"; "The sane appear as strange to the mad as the mad to the sane"; "You can't be a rationalist in an irrational world — it isn't rational." If this sounds like Monty Python, well, remember that Orton did it first.

All the characters are undressed, gunshot, drugged, drunk and (still) horny in Orton's perfectly silly finale, which mixes Shakespearean recognition with the recovery of a piece of Winston Churchill's statue — and no, it's not his cigar.

(m_cofta@citypaper.net)

What the Butler Saw Through May 17, Curio Theatre Co., Calvary Center for Culture and Community, 4740 Baltimore Ave., 215-525-1350, curiotheatre.org.