What the Butler Saw

2 Pages 530 Words

Wilmington’s production of “What the Butler Saw” by Joe Orton was a hilarious masterpiece. The Wilmington college drama production group under the direction of Michael G. Bath created an excellent and amusing production of the play. What The Butler Saw, was a comedy based in the late sixties in London, England. The play began in swift fashion and unfolded at a good pace, which helped keep the audience involved in the play. I myself was a little skeptical of the play going in based on the fact that it is a British comedy which has always been a chore for me to follow them, this one ended up working out for me. I have not seen many plays before and “What the Butler Saw” was a nice splash of warm water to get my feet wet.

The set of the play was very well assembled, and laid out to allow the actors to enter and exit at different areas of the stage. This helped with the illusion of looking into a doctor’s office at a mental ward that would have several entrances. The furniture used in the play resembled the style of the sixties that would have been customary in London at the time. The use of the exits illustrated an out of control office, which, is needed to get the play’s chaotic story line across.

The plot was like a fiery comet. When the play started out, I thought to myself “Where are they going with this?” All the sexual under and over tones, references to incest, sexual abuse, all the while the characters thinking one another are crazy. It turned out four of the six characters ended up being related. Imagine, thinking your family is crazy. Just like a comet, I figured out the play completely just as it was over. The way endings should be. The playwright, Joe Orton’s storyline with the actors figuring out that they were related is similar to the storyline of Oscar Wilde’s “Importance of Being Earnest,” whose characters also figure out they are related. Because of the plays being so much alike, a follow...