| |
 Joe Orton was a connoisseur of chaos, dubbed by the Observer
'the Oscar Wilde of the Welfare State gentility. In association with
Traffic of the Stage, Tenth Planet Productions moved to Pentameters in
Hampstead for a four week run of this double bill of high black comedy, anarchic
violence and absurd possibilities. Originally run as a double bill entitled
Crimes of Passion at the Royal Court in the sixties, Tenth Planet remains
current with the renaissance of Orton's work in London. Entertaining Mr.
Sloane had recently run at the Arts and a new production of What the Butler
Saw was scheduled for an out of London run.His plays are steeped in wit and edged with danger. There
were, for Orton, no 'basic human values'. He teases an audience with their
sense of the sacred, flaunting the hard facts of life that people contrive
to forget. His plays put sexuality back on the stage in all its exuberant,
amoral and ruthless excess. He was a survivor whose brutal laughter was a
vindictive triumph over a drab and quietly violent working class world.
Orton told the BBC in 1964, ' I think you should use the language of your
age.' In his own illuminating, epigrammatic style he looked for ways to
'kill' with language: a language for success, a language of annihilation where
laughter 'knocks them dead', 'lays them in the aisle', 'slaughters
them'.The Ruffian on the Stair is a harrowing satire on the violent
exterior hacking its way into calm domesticity, Funeral Games is a
ghoulish capriccio about the Church and private and public personas...Some people
have skeletons in the closet, others have a dead wife in the basement.
 "(Orton) was a man who loved to scandalise his audiences by
fracturing all they hold sacred. And nowhere is this more apparent than in
this brilliant double bill by Tenth Planet Productions... But it is Funeral
Games which really makes this double bill worth seeing. Utilising designer
Katy Tuxford's excellent set, director Alexander Holt has brought the best
out of his actors and Orton's superb script. Typically the characters are
outrageous and spiced with farce, and leave you reeling, but it is Orton's
wit which Holt's production does so much justice to. Orton may have
enjoyed a renaissance in the West End of late, but this little theatre in the
hearst of Hampstead is doing a fine job -who needs big names?"
Catherine Etoe - CAMDEN NEW JOURNAL "Orton completists will be most pleased to catch this double
bill."
"A lively and well-paced production... teases the hilarity out
of Orton's plot absurdities and spare dialogue which pitilessly expose the
pretension and desires beneath respectable society."
Bridget Galton - HAM & HIGH "Tenth Planet Productions have made an interesting selection
for this Joe Orton double bill... Ruffian is a well-paced and enjoyable
piece, competently directed by Alex Scrivenor. Central to its success is Greg
Donaldson's measured performance as bullish, criminal van driver
Mike."
Jeremy Austin - The Stage "Tenth Planet Productions have revived in London's first
fringe venue, the outrageous and violent prankster in Orton, and brought forth
belly laughs. See this exciting double bill!"
Anne Morgan - Cityneighbours.com  Director: Alexander Holt (Funeral Games)
Alex Scrivenor (The Ruffian on the Stair)
Producer: Alexander Holt (Tenth Planet Productions)
Designer: Katy Tuxford
Production Manager: Callum McIntoshPublicity Designer:Brian Astbury
| Cast: |
Jemma Bateman as Tessa
Philip Bosworth as Wilson
Victoria Burnham as Joyce
Greg Donaldson as Mike
Martin Isbister as Pringle
David Forrest as McCorquodale
Mark Underwood as Caulfield
|
 
 |
|
