Joe Orton's comic farce, What the Butler Saw, launches the 2002-2003 Main Stage season of the new Noble Fool Theater. Orton's comic masterpiece pokes fun at sex, authority, family relationships and the world of psychoanalysis. First staged in 1969, the Obie award-winning What the Butler Saw is a typical "Ortonesque" sex farce with crazed characters that can't keep their identities straight or their clothes on. The satire takes place in a small private mental hospital which becomes a bedlam of mistaken identity, undressing and cross-dressing, dropped trousers, and heightened libidos.
Recently, I had a chance to speak with one of the actors in What the Butler Saw, Patrick Carton. He offered insight into his history, his process, and what viewers can expect from What the Butler Saw.
RR: In your career as a Chicago actor, I've noticed you have done your share of clowning around. You created and directed the popular Noble Fool spoof of HBO's The Sopranos, been involved with the city's most well known improv troupe, the Free Associates, and also done work with Improv Olympics. Were you always drawn to comedy?
PC: The Baritones has been running for almost three years and will soon include another parody, Sex and the Suburbs, which will run as a pre-show on the same ticket. Comedy provides immediate information as to your success or failure. If the audience laughs, you did it right. In dramatic pieces one must actually wade into the audience to see if those are actual tears or just allergic reactions to the theater ventilation system.
RR: Any desire to do more serious work? Say perform in a Samuel Beckett play at the Goodman? Or perform naked in a Bailiwick show?
PC: My experiences have been evenly divided between dramatic and comedic pieces and many of the comedies I have been involved with were dark comedies, which border on the dramatic. As for Beckett: I think I would rather be naked in a Goodman show and do Beckett at the Bailiwick.
RR: You also seem to like the tightrope excitement of doing improvisation.
PC: Improvisation often seems like tightrope work to the audience, but trained improvisers usually have no fear. When a group of experienced improvisers works together long enough to build on-stage relationships and experience, they can dance on a tightrope with absolute confidence. Good improvisation is character based and that is why the better actors make better improvisers. Chicago is lucky to have many theaters, like The Noble Fool, where improvisational actors can enhance their sense of ensemble.
RR: How did you get involved with the Noble Fool, with its new downtown space?
PC: The space is absolutely awesome! This is by far the most exciting and inviting performance space ( actually three spaces ) I have ever worked in. I joined the Noble Fool after performing in Musical, the musical! at the Royal George. Flanagan's Wake was performing in the theater upstairs. They held auditions just as Musical was closing and I had known many of the Noble Fools from other productions. After bringing The Baritones aboard in 1999, the Fool realized that if they didn't make me a company member, they would have to start paying real money. Actually, The Noble Fool has historically been the most generous theater I have ever worked with. They have broken ground by paying their improvisers many times more than other theaters. The Noble Fool also offers unique opportunities to produce, act, write, direct and educate.
RR: And next up you're tackling a completely scripted performance, Joe Orton's farce, What the Butler Saw. Why don't you take a moment to, um, plug your own whole … agenda here and tell WCT readers a bit about the show.
PC: To "elevate the art of comedy in all its forms" is part of the Noble Fool mission statement. But we decided to do Butler anyway …just kidding. This Joe Orton farce is an excellent example of the "British" style of humor at its very best. It has that Fawlty Towers feel but with more elaborately defined characters and plot.
RR: How does preparing for a completely scripted performance and one that's pulled out of your imagination, differ?
PC: It's an entirely different process. First you must define the character for yourself and remember 80 pages of text. Although after the rehearsal process has moved into the final stages, each moment is actually more like improvisation than scripted work. If you do it right, the things that happen are "new" every time. So the object of the exercise in scripted performance is to remember where you go and what you say and then … forget it all.
RR: Which would you prefer, though, improv or working from a script? Or as that comparing kumquats to bananas?
PC: You're right … it is comparing kumquats to bananas. I enjoy both, but they are entirely different experiences. I prefer when possible to move back and forth.
RR: Who will you be playing in What the Butler Saw? What's the toughest part of the role for you? The most fun?
PC: I play Dr. Prentice, a psychiatrist who wedges himself into an impossible situation filled with sex, lies and masking-tape. What has been most difficult has been the restraint this character must possess as his status takes a roller coaster ride. He goes from the top of his profession to being pushed around by a hotel pageboy. What has been the most rewarding and fun for me has been working with some great talent. Brendan Kelly, also a Noble Fool, gives a hilarious, obsessed performance as Dr. Rance. Maggie Carney is a riot as Mrs. Prentice. Andrea Washburn plays a victimized secretary to the hilt. Steve Haggard and Brian Koester are terrific as the pageboy and policeman respectively, and both look stunning in dresses.
RR: Some people have said that What the Butler Saw, which is a sex farce written in the 1960s, has lost some of its edge and isn't as shocking or as relevant as it once was. Besides "shut the fuck up," what would you say to those people?
PC: I would say, "Shut the fuck up." But I would say it in that funny way where the phrase goes up at the end, like a question. You know the way a teenaged girl might say it to a friend in the school bathroom when her friend says to her, "John Floyne asked me out." And she replies, "Shut the fuck up." That way it sounds flip and less intimidating. As for losing its edge: its "edge" is not the freewheeling way it handles sexual misunderstandings and uncommon sexual situations. The real fun is the characters. It is more about the people than the situations. The impossible situations are merely launching pads for the hilarious dialogue that Joe Orton is famous for. It has the disguises, misinterpretations and flimsy alliances of a Shakespearean comedy, and much like one of Shakespeare's plays, the characters can be more entertaining than the story.
RR: Why should people make it their business to come out and see for themselves what the butler saw?
PC: What other show has sex, underwear and men in dresses?
What the Butler Saw through Nov. 2; ( 312 ) 726-1156, Ticketmaster or see www.ticketmaster.com .
