Christine's Minutes
It was frigid outside, but thirteen members and one associate of the Literature Club were warm, inside our rectangles of pixels, and warmly entertained, on February 16, 2022. During our pre-meeting time to catch up, we discussed books, the delights of emerging from COVID, and the wonderful news that Diana has one liberal relative in Mississippi.
President Fran Greenberg rang the bell at 1:06, and announced that we will again be recording the program. Christine read the minutes, and they were accepted. Lori reported that our treasury remains unchanged. As for new business, Fran suggested that we discuss when, and how we will go off Zoom and resume meeting in person. Our next meeting, being our annual meeting, will be a good time for this discussion.
Then, without further ado, it was time to settle down for some serious entertainment and Connie’s program about the English writer, Joe Orton. With her usual aplomb, Connie dressed for the part with a faux leather jacket and scarf.
Connie began her program with the biographer, not the subject: and we learned that John Lahr could himself warrant a biography, so interesting is his life. The son of Bert Lahr, the Cowardly Lion portrayer so well-known to crossword puzzlers, John Lahr was for many years the drama critic for The New Yorker. He also wrote novels, and biographies of several actors and playwrights, including his father, Dame Edna, Frank Sinatra, Noel Coward, and Tennessee Williams. His writing has won many awards and he is considered one of the greatest living literary biographers. Lahr is now eighty years old, and lives in London with his wife, Connie Booth, better known to some of us as Polly in Fawlty Towers.
Joe Orton died in 1967 at the age of 34.
Lahr’s biography, Prick Up Your Ears, came out in 1978. Additionally, he has edited Orton’s complete plays, and his very compelling diaries. Arguably, Lahr has played a key role in assuring Orton’s importance as a playwright.
Orton was born, John Kingsley Orton, on January 1, 1933, in the Saffron Lane Estates, part of council housing in Leicester. He was the first child of Elsie and William Orton. William was gardener, and quite aloof from his family. Elsie worked as a machinist, stitching underwear from 8 am to 6 pm. Yet she always ran home at her lunch break to cook lunch for her 4 children. She was strong, vivacious, and surprisingly prudish. She was often cruel to her children, yet she recognized Joe as a gifted child, and sent him to a private school, where his teachers found him to be semi-literate. All he cared about was the theatre, and at 16 he left school to pursue that ambition.
In 1949 he joined the Leicester Theatre and decided to apply to RADA. He took dance lessons and sought advice from everyone and anyone. He studied elocution with Mme. Rothery, whose lessons and coaching would make a real difference for Orton. With another of her students he performed a scene from Midsummer Night’s Dream, and won 3rd place. Then, with an uncharacteristically generous contribution from the Leicester Educational Committee, Orton applied to RADA. On his 18th birthday he took the train to London. He auditioned for RADA and got in.
He moved in with a fellow actor, Kenneth Halliwell. Kenneth was older than Joe, better educated, and withdrawn. His mother died as a result of a wasp sting, when Kenneth was 11; he was in his early 20s when his father committed suicide. (This kind of background that should set off alarm bell.) Halliwell and Orton continued to live together after RADA, and in 1959 Halliwell bought a 10 x 17 bedsit. In that small space, they read, wrote, and lived frugally. All their books came from the public library, and they began to subtly change or make collages of book covers. Their collages are now regarded as works of art, but in 1962 the response was less enthusiastic. Halliwell and Orton were caught in a police sting, and they were sentenced to six months in prison, in separate prisons. As with so many things, they reacted differently. Orton found the experience of prison oddly liberating.
In 1963, the BBC accepted his play, The Ruffian on the Stair. His next play Entertaining Mr. Sloan was a huge success. The American premier was directed by Alan Schneider, who – I feel compelled to point out – also directed the American premiere of Waiting for Godot and lived in Hastings on Hudson.
Orton’s next play, The Good and Faithful Servant, was poignant and angry; it was followed by the “boulevard farce” Loot. Loot was originally panned, but after several rewrites, it re-opened in 1966 and was a triumph. All along, as his career was ascending, Orton continued living with Kenneth in the bedsit. They often traveled to Morocco together and reveled in the sexual freedom they found there. But Kenneth’s career was going nowhere, while Orton’s was soaring. He was approached by Brian Epstein to rewrite a Beatles’ script. It was never produced, but by then he was writing What the Butler Saw.
Meanwhile, in December 1966 Orton began to keep a journal, and kept it almost daily until his death. In it he detailed his many sketchy sexual encounters, as well as arguments with Halliwell. Then, on a hot day in August 1967, Halliwell bludgeoned the sleeping Orton to his death. He then took an overdose and killed himself. His suicide note directed the reader to Orton’s diaries, “especially the latter part.” Alas, the previous nine days’ worth of diaries have been removed, by person or persons unknown. After this, Orton was more famous for being murdered by his lover, than for his plays. But that would change. His last play, What the Butler Saw, brought farce to high art.
Club members read several selections from John Lahr’s Prick Up Your Ears, from Orton’s own diaries, and saw several photographs of the plays. We had another Literature Club first – pictures of male nudity. Then we were treated to a snippet of the brilliant What the Butler Saw, on YouTube.
As Connie pointed out, there is no butler in the play.
Respectfully submitted,
Christine Lehner, Recording Secretary
It was frigid outside, but thirteen members and one associate of the Literature Club were warm, inside our rectangles of pixels, and warmly entertained, on February 16, 2022. During our pre-meeting time to catch up, we discussed books, the delights of emerging from COVID, and the wonderful news that Diana has one liberal relative in Mississippi.
President Fran Greenberg rang the bell at 1:06, and announced that we will again be recording the program. Christine read the minutes, and they were accepted. Lori reported that our treasury remains unchanged. As for new business, Fran suggested that we discuss when, and how we will go off Zoom and resume meeting in person. Our next meeting, being our annual meeting, will be a good time for this discussion.
Then, without further ado, it was time to settle down for some serious entertainment and Connie’s program about the English writer, Joe Orton. With her usual aplomb, Connie dressed for the part with a faux leather jacket and scarf.
Connie began her program with the biographer, not the subject: and we learned that John Lahr could himself warrant a biography, so interesting is his life. The son of Bert Lahr, the Cowardly Lion portrayer so well-known to crossword puzzlers, John Lahr was for many years the drama critic for The New Yorker. He also wrote novels, and biographies of several actors and playwrights, including his father, Dame Edna, Frank Sinatra, Noel Coward, and Tennessee Williams. His writing has won many awards and he is considered one of the greatest living literary biographers. Lahr is now eighty years old, and lives in London with his wife, Connie Booth, better known to some of us as Polly in Fawlty Towers.
Joe Orton died in 1967 at the age of 34.
Lahr’s biography, Prick Up Your Ears, came out in 1978. Additionally, he has edited Orton’s complete plays, and his very compelling diaries. Arguably, Lahr has played a key role in assuring Orton’s importance as a playwright.
Orton was born, John Kingsley Orton, on January 1, 1933, in the Saffron Lane Estates, part of council housing in Leicester. He was the first child of Elsie and William Orton. William was gardener, and quite aloof from his family. Elsie worked as a machinist, stitching underwear from 8 am to 6 pm. Yet she always ran home at her lunch break to cook lunch for her 4 children. She was strong, vivacious, and surprisingly prudish. She was often cruel to her children, yet she recognized Joe as a gifted child, and sent him to a private school, where his teachers found him to be semi-literate. All he cared about was the theatre, and at 16 he left school to pursue that ambition.
In 1949 he joined the Leicester Theatre and decided to apply to RADA. He took dance lessons and sought advice from everyone and anyone. He studied elocution with Mme. Rothery, whose lessons and coaching would make a real difference for Orton. With another of her students he performed a scene from Midsummer Night’s Dream, and won 3rd place. Then, with an uncharacteristically generous contribution from the Leicester Educational Committee, Orton applied to RADA. On his 18th birthday he took the train to London. He auditioned for RADA and got in.
He moved in with a fellow actor, Kenneth Halliwell. Kenneth was older than Joe, better educated, and withdrawn. His mother died as a result of a wasp sting, when Kenneth was 11; he was in his early 20s when his father committed suicide. (This kind of background that should set off alarm bell.) Halliwell and Orton continued to live together after RADA, and in 1959 Halliwell bought a 10 x 17 bedsit. In that small space, they read, wrote, and lived frugally. All their books came from the public library, and they began to subtly change or make collages of book covers. Their collages are now regarded as works of art, but in 1962 the response was less enthusiastic. Halliwell and Orton were caught in a police sting, and they were sentenced to six months in prison, in separate prisons. As with so many things, they reacted differently. Orton found the experience of prison oddly liberating.
In 1963, the BBC accepted his play, The Ruffian on the Stair. His next play Entertaining Mr. Sloan was a huge success. The American premier was directed by Alan Schneider, who – I feel compelled to point out – also directed the American premiere of Waiting for Godot and lived in Hastings on Hudson.
Orton’s next play, The Good and Faithful Servant, was poignant and angry; it was followed by the “boulevard farce” Loot. Loot was originally panned, but after several rewrites, it re-opened in 1966 and was a triumph. All along, as his career was ascending, Orton continued living with Kenneth in the bedsit. They often traveled to Morocco together and reveled in the sexual freedom they found there. But Kenneth’s career was going nowhere, while Orton’s was soaring. He was approached by Brian Epstein to rewrite a Beatles’ script. It was never produced, but by then he was writing What the Butler Saw.
Meanwhile, in December 1966 Orton began to keep a journal, and kept it almost daily until his death. In it he detailed his many sketchy sexual encounters, as well as arguments with Halliwell. Then, on a hot day in August 1967, Halliwell bludgeoned the sleeping Orton to his death. He then took an overdose and killed himself. His suicide note directed the reader to Orton’s diaries, “especially the latter part.” Alas, the previous nine days’ worth of diaries have been removed, by person or persons unknown. After this, Orton was more famous for being murdered by his lover, than for his plays. But that would change. His last play, What the Butler Saw, brought farce to high art.
Club members read several selections from John Lahr’s Prick Up Your Ears, from Orton’s own diaries, and saw several photographs of the plays. We had another Literature Club first – pictures of male nudity. Then we were treated to a snippet of the brilliant What the Butler Saw, on YouTube.
As Connie pointed out, there is no butler in the play.
Respectfully submitted,
Christine Lehner, Recording Secretary
