| Entertaining Mr Sloane | MTC |
|
|
|
|
 MTC Artistic Director Simon Phillips kicks off Season
2007 with a new production of Joe Orton’s classic dark comedy about a
handsome stranger with a secret, his libidinous landlady, her
gender-bending brother and geriatric father.
“Twenty years
ago, in my first season at MTC, I had a side-splitting success with
Orton’s What the Butler Saw, which introduced me to two life-long
friends and colleagues, Bob Hornery and Richard Piper,” says Simon. “So it is with moist eyes and a warm heart that I invite them to celebrate this anniversary with me.”
Her language may be prim but the intentions of Kath (Helpmann Award-winner Amanda Muggleton) are blatant when she picks up Mr. Sloane (Ben Geurens, MTC debut) and takes him in as a lodger. Attractive, mischievous and dangerous, Sloane eventually has Kath and her brother Ed (Green Room Award-winner Richard Piper) eating out of his hand as they compete for his favours. But the old man, Kemp (Green Room Award-winner Bob Hornery), never forgets a face and Sloane’s sordid past is about to violently catch up with him.
When Joe Orton
burst onto the scene in 1964, this subversively stylish first comedy
outraged the British public, brilliantly captured the mood of the era
and catapulted its author to immediate international attention. Orton,
with his infallible ear for popular dialogue, talent for satire and own
brutal demise, was to become one the most influential writers of the
age.
Winner - Best Play - 1964 London Critics’ Variety Award
“Orton takes matters of horror and bad taste and criminality and
translates them into comedy. Translates them, one should add, into art.
His plays show a grasp of rhythm, of structure, and classical
precedent.” – Financial Times
“Wonderfully funny and
retains all its capacity to shock ... still seems an astonishing comic
achievement...capable of releasing great gales of delighted laughter” – The Daily Telegraph
“There
is no denying (Orton’s) power as a comic stylist or the play’s ability,
even after all these years, to leave one pleasurably shocked.” – The Guardian
Melbourne Theatre Company presents
Entertaining Mr Sloane
By Joe Orton
Director Simon Phillips
Set & Costume Designer Shaun Gurton
Lighting Designer Matt Scott
Composer David Chesworth
Venue: the Arts Centre Fairfax Studio
Previews: from 22 December 2006
Dates: 28 December 2006 - 10 February 2007
Times:
Mon & Tue 6.30pm (no perfs 25 & 26 Dec), Wed 1pm & 8pm, Thu
& Fri 8pm, Sat 4pm & 8.30pm (23 Dec 2pm & 8pm)
Tickets: $16 - $72.10
Bookings: Ticketmaster 1300 136 166 or www.mtc.com.au
|
|
Contact: |
