Joe Orton

by Christopher Bigsby

A brief profile of the British playwright accompanies an analysis of his majo plays and their themes.

79 pages, Paperback

First published June 25, 1982

Reviews

[Richard Jespers · Rating 4 out of 5]

This British scholar compresses (seventy-five pages) yet illumines Orton’s short but expansive oeuvre. He reduces Orton’s work to what he calls “anarchic farce.” Through his several plays and one novel Orton lampoons that which he detests about mid-twentieth-century British society: its ossified moral system, its laws, its strictures against freedom including sexual freedom. Through his own sense of narcissism, he develops characters who are objectified, unreal but give the appearance of verisimilitude through their parodying of expected behaviors. Yet there are always the one or two characters who, like a bowler, intends to mow down all the others by bowling a strike. For anyone who admires farce yet doesn’t know quite how to approach writing it, the reading of Orton (including his diaries) is quite a schooling, and Bigsby’s short study points readers in the right direction.