Take a Peep

Amanda, the managing director for NC Stage, found this picture of a "What The Butler Saw" machine online. According to the source, these "tourist amusements used a set of flicking cards containing sequential photographs to simulate moving pictures; they were cheap attractions in the entrances to indoor amusement arcades on piers or on the seafront. They tended to contain quaint and voyeuristic flicks: a typical one still in use at Southend pier in 1963 had a butler peeping through a keyhole to see his lady employer showing her ankles and voluminous bloomers." The machine below may from the Edwardian era.

As an example of the inspiration for the title of Orton's last play, this photograph symbolizes Orton's was interest in the tension between exposure and voyeurism on a multiple levels.

In the well-known incident, Orton was arrested for withdrawing books from his local lending library, altering photos and captions, and returning the books -- a kind of vandalism, but one which turned unsuspecting library patrons into voyeurs and consumers of satire. To complete the picture, Orton sometimes spied on people as they looked at the altered books, to see their reaction...

When Joe Orton was jailed for defacing the books in his local library, the sentence (at least as described in retrospect) was considered harsh. Orton speculated the sentence for him and his boyfriend were stiff because of their sexuality. Orton credits his experience in prison with a revitalized conviction (no pun intended) that the power structure was thoroughly corrupt -- and with a new sense of freedom and courage in his writing.

Ironically, the books that Orton and his lover, Halliwell, creatively vandalized, are now preserved and on exhibit in the same library in Islington from which Orton first withdrew them.

You can see images of some of the altered book pages and dustjackets here, and the story of the incident here.

While some folks see What The Butler Saw as a mere farce, others see a more radical project behind Orton's work. I'm not sure that the play should feel like Pinter, but an interesting opinion about the playwright and current perceptions of him is here.

A review of our current production of Orton's What The Butler Saw has been published here.