Back in Black

Last week I saw a play that revolves around misogyny, murder and mommy issues — must be a serious drama, right? Wrong. Joe Orton's "Entertaining Mr. Sloane" is just that: downright entertaining. As an outspoken rebel playwright in the 1960s, you'd think Orton's outrageous black comedies would have played remarkably well to a free-loving hippie audience, but it took 45 years for this particular work to reach the London stage without being censored. And I couldn't be more pleased that it finally did.

The West End production stars Matthew Horne, a big television star over here, as the bottle-blond deviously manipulative, yet charming Mr. Sloane. Forty-something landlady Kath, a marvelously hilarious Imelda Staunton (who I instantly recognized as Professor Umbridge from Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix) is immediately smitten with her new tenant Sloane, who seems to be hiding something from the very start. Adding to the cast of already outrageously bizarre and seriously psychologically disturbed characters are Kath's — ahem — bachelor brother Ed (comic genius Simon Paisley Day) and their senile father, Kemp (a hysterical and touching Richard Bremmer).

Set in the living room of a house that stands alone next to a rubbish dump, the bubble-like atmosphere fuels the neurotic chaos that ensues: Kath shamelessly throws herself at Sloane (at one point in a completely sheer nightgown that leaves nothing to the imagination); brisk, buttoned up Ed reveals his enthusiastic admiration for the male physique and wastes no time hiring Sloane as his chauffeur and decking him out in a dinky, kinky leather uniform, and Kemp recognizes Sloane as the murderer of his former boss.

The unscrupulous tale, which was Orton's way of offering a giant 'screw you' to society for being too close minded, is reminiscent of Harold Pinter's earlier work and is hilariously entertaining and uncomfortably twisted at the same time. It is a truly amoral piece — wild, witty and utterly heartless.

The small cast was one of the best I've seen in a long time. Staunton, Paisely Day and Bremmer are all veterans of the London stage and it shows. Each of them got the quirky nuances that make their characters so oddly entertaining and fascinating to watch. However, casting Horne may have been a bit of a misstep. His lack of experience with stage acting was even more apparent next to the rest of the well-trained cast and made his character seem less complex than Orton's script called for.

Nonetheless, my first taste of British black comedy was memorable and enjoyable. Next week's show is Private Lives. I also snagged extra tix to Othello, so look for mini-reviews of those next week.

Cheers!
Kathy

PS: Brace yourselves for a slew of entries — this blog is in desperate need of updating.