Otherwise Engaged

by Simon Gray

Isolated university professor Simon Hench, completely and selfishly otherwise engaged in listening to a new recording "Parsifal" is continually interrupted by students, friends, lovers and life.2 women, 5 men

Genres: Plays, Drama, Theatre

48 pages, Paperback

First published November 1, 1975

About the author

Librarian Note: There is more than one author by this name in the Goodreads database.

Simon James Holliday Gray, CBE (21 October 1936 – 7 August 2008) was an English playwright and memoirist who also had a career as a university lecturer in English literature at Queen Mary, University of London, for 20 years. While teaching at Queen Mary, Gray began his writing career as a novelist in 1963 and, during the next 45 years, in addition to 5 published novels, wrote 40 original stage plays, screenplays, and screen adaptations of his own and others' works for stage, film, and television and became well known for the self-deprecating wit characteristic of several volumes of memoirs or diaries

Reviews

[Laura · Rating 3 out of 5]

From BBC Radio 4:
A dark study of a London publisher trying to enjoy a Saturday afternoon at home listening to Wagner.

[Nick Jones · Rating 3 out of 5]

Simon Gray is one of those names that I know but knew little about. I’m not sure what his reputation is today, but he had a number of successes in the past. In the 1970s Butley and Otherwise Engaged were hits in London and had successful transfers to Broadway. His detractors painted him as a little easy, a little middle brow, a little undemanding, but he had his supporters, not least Harold Pinter who directed many of Gray’s plays...including Otherwise Engaged. And there is something a little Pinteresque about this play, but Pinter translated into middle class literary English. A shortish play divided into two acts: one setting, one continual time span. The central character is Simon Hensch: a publisher, a member of a comfortable literary middle class. Alone one weekend morning he intends to spend his time listening to Wagner’s Parsifal, but he has a series of interruptions: Dave who lives in the flat upstairs; his brother Stephen; an old university friend Jeff; and Jeff’s partner Davina. All seem to be undergoing emotional turmoil of one sort or another – Stephen is fretting about a job he has applied for and is convinced he has been rejected; Jeff is having an affair with his ex wife; Davina has tracked Jeff down to return the keys to his flat; Dave is just defined by a general sense of miserableness. Through all this Simon remains calm and objective, offering advice when appropriate; compared to the others his life seems ordered and successful; his life seems materially comfortable, but he also seems contented – his wife Beth is away, but we are told they have a successful marriage and faithful; after Jeff has left Simon turns down Davina’s sexual advances; he has none of Jeff’s cynical and reactionary misanthropy; importantly for a play with humour, Simon has a good line in witty remarks. Then, just before the interval, Simon has another visitor and there is a revelation and we have to rethink our attitudes to Simon. In the second act Simon’s character is turned on its head: his behaviour doesn’t change, he remains calmly self assured, but the other characters reassess him: now his calm objectivity seems to be an indifference based on self satisfaction. By the end the character he seems closest to is Jeff – Simon just has a witty version of Jeff’s misanthropy. Notably Simon doesn’t develop as a character, but our responses to him do. What Otherwise Engaged does it does very well - it’s a well focused and well constructed play with a sense of wit - but there is something very narrow about it: as a satire it is all a little easy. Maybe it is a play that feels very serious in intention, but not really that complex in detail. (But we can note the similarities with Pinter’s Betrayal: a story of infidelities and deceit among the literary middle classes – in both the central character is a publisher. It’s probably public knowledge, recorded somewhere in Pinter’s notebooks, but I presume directing Gray’s play inspired Pinter to construct his own infidelities into a dramatic work. And Betrayal is an vastly more interesting work)

[🐴 🍖]

huh. this one's sorta like butley turned inside out: where ben butley would say something vicious, simon hench contents himself w/ an "oh" or a rote "good god." unsurprisingly it ends up being less exciting in comparison (a few good drinks flung in assorted faces notwithstanding) but the central q is as interesting if not moreso: is simon's tranquility calculated to drive his friends and acquaintances nuts? or is it just that it provides a perfect reflective surface for all their neuroses? dedicated to harold pinter, which makes a lot of sense. (n.b. the viking hb edition features an extremely spoiler-y blurb on the back that the spoiler-averse should take pains not to view)

[Gregory Knapp · Rating 4 out of 5]

I saw Otherwise Engaged in the West End in 1976 with my parents when I was 13 years old.

It was the first time I had been exposed to "fashionable bourgeois pessimism" in a play and the first time I had seen a live topless woman. This one -- for what it's worth -- had perfect breasts.

It was a VERY memorable and educational evening at the Theatre.

[Bettie · Rating 3 out of 5]

Bettie's Books

[Razi · Rating 4 out of 5]

Everything can change in just one afternoon while timeless, changeless Wagner plays in the background.

[Robert · Rating 3 out of 5]

Read with Portland Playreaders.

[Bobby Sullivan · Rating 3 out of 5]

Act 1: Very arch, very slow. Act 2: A bit shocking, and boy does it escalate quickly to the end. I'd enjoy directing this play.

[Kendra Carlson · Rating 3 out of 5]

Interesting with the right cast; vulgar at times. Potential nudity.