Entertaining Mr Sloane

By Joe Orton

BBC Radio 3Drama on 3

As director John Tydeman says in the informative introduction of this first radio production of the 1964 play, this is not an important play but an entertaining one. We also learn that Dudley Sutton played the 19 year old Sloane in that first production. Here he is Kemp, the family grandfather.

I saw a production of this in New York less than 10 years ago. It didn't make much of an impression on me then. I think I was in a cranky mood with my date in a relationship that was going bad. But today I quite enjoyed it for what it was as I listened at the gym on an mp3 player. Actually it was sort of the perfect way to hear it, while working out. There is a scene where Ed is asking Sloane about his workout habits.
In the early scenes Sloane is a sort of projection screen for the lustful desires of the other, older characters in the play. This to me was the most interesting part of the play. It starts to explore that blind and unseemly atmosphere of lust. The object becomes what they want him to be. They are not at all able to see what he really is. This sort of lust is not at all attractive, the vampire like need of the old to connect with youth as if somehow it will give them a new lease on life. He uses this, his attractiveness, their desire, to his own advantage as he plays all the bisexual angles within this odd family. One thinks that he might just win the game until the tables are turned on him and he proves to be so deeply amoral, actually criminal, that he entraps himself in the web they weave. He will be their plaything, their time-share slave.

As they stated in the introduction, it's not a great play. But it is beautifully paced, has some funny, witty dialogue and some fun turns of plot. Some of these plot twists would seem a bit melodramatic unless one considers what happened to poor Mr. Orton just three years after this piece was written. This is a fine and entertaining production.
It can be heard here: Drama on 3 through Saturday April 21, 2007

The Homecoming

Drama on 3, BBC Radio
3

This new production of Harold Pinter's 1965 play features Pinter in the role of the old man of the family, Max. This is quite a family of men. These are not at all nice people who we spend this hour and a half with. As a matter of fact these are awful people who engage in a sort of verbal slapstick in this dark comedy. One might not want to actually wander into such a house, yet their jabs at one another provides some fast paced entertainment. There is never a dull moment.

The exuberance with which Pinter's tackles the role makes one think that he has been waiting all these years to play Max. He is dreadfully marvelous. Well, they all are. This is a great production of a great demented and somewhat courageous play. This is the sort of thing that earned Pinter the Nobel. This is the artist taking things beyond the edges of reason.

The play presents more questions than it answers and this is a very good thing. One question is. "What the hell is up with Ruth, and why does she agree with this scheme?" It would be interesting to get the opinion of a woman who has heard the play. The people in the play are unkind to women, or at least they speak about some horrible criminal activity toward women. And yet Ruth is not frightened off. Is she a masochist?

In childhood it was a lot of fun to be spun around enough to upset the fluids in the inner ear to cause dizziness, be left stumbling, giggling, and bumping into the furniture in mock drunkenness yet with all senses lucid and alert. This is the effect of a play like this. It's disorienting.

Unfortunately the week portal of BBC WWW 'Listen Again" has expired on this one. so if you missed it, it's gone. Perhaps it will be replayed in the future or released on CD or purchasable download. It would be a good thing if they created a site where downloads of dramas could be bought. Perhaps they are working on such an idea.