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Joe Orton
Orton, Joe
The Concise Oxford Companion to the Theatre
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1996
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© The Concise Oxford Companion to the Theatre 1996, originally published by Oxford University Press 1996. (Hide copyright information)
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Orton, Joe (1933–67), English dramatist, whose first play,
Entertaining Mr Sloane (1964; NY, 1965), shocked and amused its audience by the contrast between its prim-and-proper dialogue and the violence and outrageousness of its action. The same contrast was apparent in
Loot (1966; NY, 1968), a satire on police corruption and the conventions of detective fiction. In 1967 an earlier play
The Ruffian on the Stair, written for radio, was staged at the
Royal Court Theatre with
The Erpingham Camp, previously televised, in a double bill,
Crimes of Passion (NY, 1969). Orton was brutally murdered by his homosexual partner who then committed suicide—an episode as violent and bizarre as any in his plays. His last full-length work,
What the Butler Saw, a parody of conventional farce, was produced in 1969 (NY, 1970), with Ralph
Richardson in the lead in London, and had a mixed reception. A one-act play,
Funeral Games, was produced at the end of 1970.
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Joe Orton's London, today. (Essay).
Magazine article from: The Gay & Lesbian Review Worldwide; 5/1/2002; ; 700+ words
; ...undergraduate English professor described the works of Joe Orton in a literary comedy class I once took. Orton...filled dance clubs might once have premiered Joe Orton's plays. My search for Joe Orton's London took me on a pilgrimage to the Islington...
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Joe Orton's sexual revolution.
Magazine article from: The Gay & Lesbian Review Worldwide; 5/1/2007; ; 700+ words
; HE WAS NO ORDINARY JOE: during his short but meteoric career...baddest queer of the postwar British stage, Joe Orton (1933-1967) was getting it both ways...without actually speaking the unspeakable, Orton's renegade comedies explicitly poked...
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 "The Daily Mail (London, England)")
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Why I blame myself for murder of Joe Orton; It was a Sixties cause celebre - the blud Now, with his best-known work revive dgeoning of an outrageous playwright by his gay lover. ed in the West End, comes this startling confession...(News)
Newspaper article from: The Daily Mail (London, England); 4/16/2009; 700+ words
; ...burnt candle', was the body of Joe Orton, the 34-year-old playwright...to see it. The life and death of Joe Orton, and his startlingly autobiographical...film and theatre critic, first met Joe Orton, whose fourth play, Loot, was...
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COMIC COLLISIONS WITH REVIVAL OF `BUTLER,' JOE ORTON'S DARK HUMOR IS BROUGHT TO LIGHT
Newspaper article from: The Boston Globe; 3/5/2004; ; 700+ words
; ...the comic timing of this scene in Joe Orton's "What the Butler Saw," in...production, is considered among Orton's best plays. "Dramatically...reminds us of what we forget about Joe Orton: that he was self-educated relatively...
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Why I blame myself for the murder of Joe Orton; It was a Sixties cause celebre- the bludgeoning of an outrageous playwright byhis gay lover. Now,with his best-known work revived in the West End, comes this startling confession ...(News)
Newspaper article from: The Daily Mail (London, England); 4/4/2009; 700+ words
; ...burnt candle', was the body of Joe Orton, the 34-year-old playwright...to see it. The life and death of Joe Orton, and his startlingly autobiographical...film and theatre critic, first met Joe Orton, whose fourth play, Loot, was...
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JOE ORTON'S LAST NOVEL: SATIRE WITHOUT SUBJECT
Newspaper article from: The Boston Globe; 10/15/1987; ; 700+ words
; HEAD TO TOE, by Joe Orton. St. Martin's. 187 pp. $13.95. The most interesting part of Joe Orton's life is the part we will never know...writing things like "Head to Toe," Joe Orton learned how to make irrefutable words...
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 "Daily Herald (Arlington Heights, IL)")
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A treasure The late Joe Orton's fine, literary wit makes 'Loot' worth the hunt.(Time Out!)
Newspaper article from: Daily Herald (Arlington Heights, IL); 5/12/2000; ; 700+ words
; ...Saturday Box office: (847) 835-5398 Joe Orton is one of the great lost playwrights...when he was barely 34 years old, Orton had already a handful of plays that...comedies are still funny and bracing. Orton loved to shock people. He loved to...
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Joe Orton's `Butler' packs farce with emotional force
Newspaper article from: Chicago Sun-Times; 2/1/1991; ; 700+ words
; The playwright Joe Orton loathed the conventional. Before his...original prankster, Till Eulenspiegel, Orton died a young man. "What the Butler Saw...into meanings all its own," summarized Orton's biographer, John Lahr. The playwright...
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Joe Orton.(Brief Article)
Magazine article from: World Literature Today; 6/22/1996; ; 654 words
; ...killed by his companion in 1967), Joe Orton has achieved a status that is rare...them, but never abandoning them. If Orton seems an exponent of the well-made...see the dichotomies within. While Orton can mock the complacent who are easily...
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 "Star Tribune (Minneapolis, MN)")
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A madcap `Butler' turns into a misadventure; THEATER REVIEW: Joe Orton's stinging satire disappears in the extreme farce on display in the Burning House Group's production of "What the Butler Saw.".(NEWS)
Newspaper article from: Star Tribune (Minneapolis, MN); 5/16/2007; ; 700+ words
; ...There's been a bit of a run on Joe Orton plays in the Twin Cities in the past...harpoons. Where in this show is Orton the working-class playwright...7977 WHAT THE BUTLER SAW Who: By Joe Orton. Directed by David Allen Baker Jr...
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Joe Orton
Book article from: The Columbia Encyclopedia, Sixth Edition
Joe Orton 1933-67, English playwright, b. John Kingsley. After studying acting, he wrote farcical comedies noted for their cynical...
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Orton, Joe
Book article from: The Concise Oxford Companion to English Literature
Orton, Joe (1933–67), playwright and...made them a succès de scandale . Orton was battered to death in his Islington home...Halliwell, who then committed suicide. Orton's novel Between Us Girls , written in...
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John Kingsley Orton
Encyclopedia entry from: Encyclopedia of World Biography
John Kingsley Orton John Kingsley Orton (1933-1967) had a meteoric rise in British theater, with three hit plays produced in the 1960s. John Kingsley (Joe) Orton was born in Leicester on January 1, 1933, the oldest of four...
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Frears, Stephen Arthur
Encyclopedia entry from: Encyclopedia of World Biography
...directed Prick Up Your Ears , a biography of playwright Joe Orton, played by Gary Oldman. Based on a book by theater critic John Lahr, the film follows the short, troubled life of Orton, who is killed by his abusive lover, played in the film...
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comedy
Book article from: The Columbia Encyclopedia, Sixth Edition
...called black comedy, often concerning topics like racism, sexual perversion, and murder, of playwrights such as Joe Orton , Harold Pinter , and David Mamet . Bibliography See B. N. Schilling, The Comic Spirit (1965); J. W. Krutch...
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