Joe Orton's ENTERTAINING MR. SLOANE Opens at Theater Schmeater, 5/18

Theater Schmeater continues its 20^th Anniversary Season celebration with one of Joe Orton's quirkiest plays, ENTERTAINING MR. SLOANE, directed by J.D. Lloyd, opening on May 18 and running Thursday, Fridays, and Saturdays at 8 p.m. through June 16.

 

Sloane is a handsome young man who needs a room.  Kath is willing to rent the room to make a little extra cash, and is more than willing to have the comely young Sloane around the house to make a little extra time.  Desires and anticipations become sport when Ed, Kath's brother, appears to compete for Sloane's affections­-all to the disappointment of old man Kemp.  Set in pre-mod England, ENTERTAINING MR. SLOANE offers up a tail of skewed ethics and conflicted conventions, amid a morass of mixEd Morals.  It's contrary Joe Orton at his wittiest and acerbic best.  

 

Born John Kingsley Orton in January 1933, Mr. Orton was, through much of his 20s, an unpublished author of novels and a petty thief who stole and defaced library books.  ENTERTAINING MR. SLOANE was one of Orton's first produced plays (1964), and it illustrates the promise realized in his later scripts, including Loot (1965), and the posthumously produced Funeral Games (1968) and What the Butler Saw (1969).  The skill and clarity of Orton's works established him as a counter culture icon. Joe Orton was murdered in his sleep by his long time companion in August 1967.

Theater Schmeater's production of ENTERTAINING MR. SLOANE features a talented cast that includes Harry Todd Jamieson as Sloane, James Cowan as Ed, Mark Fullerton as Kemp and Lisa Viertel as Kath.