York Actors Collective presents
Entertaining Mr Sloane by Joe Orton
Theatre @41 Monkgate, York
15-18 March 2023
A group of York actors has formed a new theatre group – York Actors Collective (YAC) – to stage “entertaining and thought-provoking theatre” in the city. A revival of Joe Orton’s controversial play Entertaining Mr Sloane at Theatre@41 Monkgate from March 15-18 will mark the group’s debut.
“The York Actor’s Collective is an independent group of like-minded actors whose aim is to produce entertaining and thought-provoking theatre,” says resident director Angie Millard.
“Entertaining Mr Sloane is our first production, arising from a mutual discussion of ideas, dramatic impact and fulfilling roles for the actors. We wanted to focus on well written plays which offer interesting opportunities. Our challenge is to attract an audience but shake up their expectations a little”.
Orton’s play centres around Kath, who lives with her father and brings home a lodger – the amoral and psychopathic Mr Sloane. Her father recognises him from his past life and challenges Mr Sloane’s honesty but when her brother Ed arrives, things become complicated. It becomes clear that both siblings are involved in a tense sexual struggle for Mr Sloane who plays one off against the other while their father gets caught in the cross fire.
“Since the premiere of Entertaining Mr Sloane in the West End in 1964, the play has been met with controversy. Critics publicly disagreed about Orton’s talent, squabbling about commercial success and art, failing to see his originality. He tapped into the language and mood of the 1960s, and his biographer John Lahr talks of Orton twisting theatrical form. Orton reinvented farce for a 20th century audience, using colloquial language to forge savage humour and irony,” says Angie.
“The dialogue is funny because Orton uses non-sequitur comments and observations; his masked references to homosexuality outfoxed the Sixties censor but a knowing audience get it all. Orton is outrageous and totally irreverent, his view of human nature is bizarrely quite comforting as he laughs at everything. Tragically, he was murdered by his lover who beat him to death with a hammer, thereby robbing us of an exceptional talent.”