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- Entertaining Mr. Sloane begins with a dowdy, forty-ish woman named Kath showing her middle-class home to a prospective lodger, a street-wise and coarse twenty-year-old boy named Sloane whom she had met that afternoon in the public library.
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Entertaining Mr Sloane is a three-act play written in 1963 by the English playwright Joe Orton. [1] It was first produced in London at the New Arts Theatre on 6 May 1964 and transferred to the West End's Wyndham's Theatre on 29 June 1964.
- Joe Orton
- 1964
Entertaining Mr. Sloane opens with Kath showing her prospective new boarder, Mr. Sloane, through her house. Kath is dowdy, middle-aged, and clearly attracted to young Sloane, whose surface show...
Entertaining Mr. Sloane opens with a frumpy, middle-aged woman named Kath showing her modest home to a potential lodger, a street-smart and rough-around-the-edges twenty-year-old named...
- Author Biography
- Plot Summary
- Characters
- Themes
- Style
- Historical Context
- Critical Overview
- Criticism
- Sources
- Further Reading
Joe Orton was born John Orton in Leicester (pronounced “Les-tur”), England, an industrial city eighty miles northwest of London, on New Year’s Day, 1933. The son of working-class parents—his father a gardener and his mother a factory worker—Orton was raised in a stable but emotionally barren and conventional middle-class suburban environment. His d...
Act I
Entertaining Mr. Sloanebegins with a dowdy, forty-ish woman named Kath showing her middle-class home to a prospective lodger, a street-wise and coarse twenty-year-old boy named Sloane whom she had met that afternoon in the public library. Kath almost immediately hints to Sloane that she is willing to have sex with him and reveals that she once had a young son out of wedlock whom she gave up for adoption. Sloane agrees to take a room in the house, revealing that he was himself brought up in an...
Act II
One morning, six months later, Kath enters from a shopping trip to find Sloane lying on the sofa wearing boots, leather trousers, and a white T-shirt. Sloane explains that he is resting while Eddie works on the car because Sloane has a hangover from a late night out with three of his male friends. As he fields Kath’s probing questions about women, Sloane accuses her of jealousy and attempting to run his life, threatening to leave if she persists. Kemp enters looking for his pills but refuses...
Act III
Ed enters, finds his father behind the sofa, and carries him upstairs to the old man’s bedroom. When Ed returns, he reports that Kemp is dead. While Sloane is shocked and frightened, Kath seems oblivious to the seriousness of her father’s condition. Ed revels in his new position of power. Sloane begins to pack to leave with Ed, but Ed pretends to be intent on forcing Sloane to face the authorities until Sloane lays his hand on Ed’s knee, accepts responsibility for the killing, asks for forgiv...
Dadda
SeeKemp
Ed
Ed vies with his sister Kath to be Sloane’s sexual partner and ends up sharing him with her. Mean-spirited, self-centered, pompous, and domineering, Ed is the son of the aging Kemp and part of the mysterious “business” that employs Sloane as a chauffeur after Ed becomes sexually attracted to him. As a young man Ed was very active in sports, which his father admired, but a rift occurred one day between Ed and his father shortly after Ed’s seventeenth birthday, when Kemp discovered Ed doing som...
MEDIA ADAPTATIONS
1. Entertaining Mr. Sloanewas adapted as a feature film by Canterbury Film in 1970. The screenplay was written by Clive Exton, produced by Douglas Kentish, directed by Douglas Hickox. Beryl Reid stars as Kath, Peter McEnery as Sloane, Harry Andrews as Ed, and Alan Webb as Kemp. This ninety minute film was made more widely available on VHS in 1980 by Thorn EMI Video, in 1989 by Warner Home Video, and in 1990 by HBO Video. 2. Prick up Your Ears (1987), is a feature film based on John Lahr’s bio...
Sex
Orton’s most obvious subject in Entertaining Mr. Sloaneis sexual appetite. With the exception of the aged Kemp, the characters are so preoccupied with their sexual needs that by the end of the play they appear completely self-centered, frighteningly insensitive, and almost subhuman. Kath is the one most openly hunting for sexual satisfaction. Having met Sloane that afternoon in the library, she invites him to consider her home as an alternative to his present lodgings. When Sloane says in his...
TOPICS FOR FURTHER STUDY
1. Read John Lahr’s biography of Orton, Prick up Your Ears (1978) or view the 1987 film version of the biography to gather more specific information on Orton’s upbringing and relationship with his parents, family, and friends. Discuss how these relationships are reflected in the characters, plot, humor, and tone of Entertaining Mr. Sloane. 2. View the film version of Entertaining Mr. Sloane. Compare it to your reading of the stage version and discuss the ways in which the film version either...
Appearance and Reality
If the intensity of these characters’ sex drives makes them funny, what makes them even funnier is their attempt to hide their obsessions. While Kath is seducing Sloane, she generally pretends to be coy or describes her affections as “motherly.” When Sloane responds aggressively to her sexual hints, Kath pretends to be outraged (“Mr. Sloane—don’t betray your trust”) while soon giving him all the “go ahead” signals he might need: “I must be careful of you. Have me naked on the floor if I give...
Violence
Paradoxical as it might sound, the pivotal point in the comedy of Entertaining Mr. Sloaneis the killing of Kemp at the end of Act II. This genuinely violent scene challenges the customary light tone of comedy and initiates the creation of that special “Ortonesque” quality for which Orton’s plays would soon become famous. As Kemp enters at the end of Act II, Sloane slams the door behind him and stalks the old man, who backs away and pathetically calls for Ed, the son he has barely spoken to fo...
Black Humor
This strange, Ortonesque sense of humor is generally referred to as “black humor,” the kind that attempts to shock the audience into laughing at what is essentially grotesque and horrifying. This dark humor receives its full expression in Act III when Kath, Ed, and Sloane respond to Kemp’s death with varying forms of apathy, self-interest, and uncivilized human behavior. Act III begins with Kath, Ed, and Sloane huddling over Kemp’s body and Kath saying “somebody fetch his tablets.” However, i...
The Decriminalization of Homosexuality in England
The mid-to late-1960s are often thought of as an era of sexual permissiveness (a concept often labeled “free love”). During this time, many young people questioned what society had labeled sexually taboo. At times they openly flouted sexual convention in an attempt to force society to reevaluate and loosen established mores. Events often called “love-ins” encouraged casual sex with multiple partners. Many others resisted the free love movement and vocally criticized the permissiveness as evid...
Beatlemania
In early 1963, the Beatles were one of several bands performing in small nightclubs in their hometown of Liverpool, England, but by December of 1963 their first megahit, “I Want to Hold Your Hand” turned them into an international phenomenon. In 1964, the year that Entertaining Mr. Sloane debuted, the Beatles began their domination of the world’s pop scene with their first trip to America for a tour and a landmark appearance on the Ed Sullivan Show. At these concerts, the predominantly teenag...
COMPARE & CONTRAST
1. 1964: Last Exit to Brooklyn by American novelist Hubert Selby is published. A London court will convict Selby of obscenity but he will win a reversal on appeal. Entertaining Mr. Sloane, like all of Orton’s unconventional and purposely provocative plays, was often charged with being obscene, and though his plays were never brought to court they were all subject to the censorship of the Lord Chamberlain. Today:The Theatres Act of 1968 abolished the Lord Chamberlain’s role as official censor...
Entertaining Mr. Sloane has generally been overshadowed by what are now considered Orton’s more mature and more clearly “farcical” plays, Loot and What the Butler Saw. However, when Orton’s first full-length play premiered, eminent British playwright Terence Rattigan called it (in a letter to Orton quoted by Lahr) “the most exciting and stimulating...
Terry R. Nienhuis
Nienhuis is a Ph.D. specializing in modern and contemporary drama. In this essay he discusses the moral dimensions of comedy and their relevance to Orton’s first full-length play, Entertaining Mr. Sloane. The rebellious and comical style that Joe Orton is most famous (or infamous) for does not surface in its complete form until his last two major plays, Loot and What the Butler Saw. His first major play, Entertaining Mr. Sloane, however, ultimately embodies enough of the qualities noticed by...
WHAT DO I READ NEXT?
1. Loot (1965) and What the Butler Saw(1969) are Orton’s most famous plays and works that clearly show his mastery of stage farce. 2. Not in Front of the Audience: Homosexuality on Stage(1992), by Nicholas de Jongh is a thorough and interesting history of the portrayal of homosexual characters in theatre. 3. The Orton Diaries, (1986) edited by John Lahr, records the last eight months of Orton’s life from December 1966 to August 1967, and includes entries from the diary Orton occasionally kept...
Ben Brantley
Brantley reviews a 1997 production of Orton’s play, praising the staging for preserving the playwright’s clever wordplay while also enhancing the theatrical experience with new sensorial touches. [Text Not Available] [Text Not Available] Source: Ben Brantley, “A Houseguest Inspires Not So Maternal Feelings” in the New York Times, February 22, 1997, pp. C13–14.
Asahina, Robert. Review of Entertaining Mr. Sloane in the Hudson Review, Winter, 1981-82, p. 568. Darlington, W. A. Review of Entertaining Mr. Sloane in the Daily Telegraph, May 7, 1964. Esslin, Martin. “Joe Orton: The Comedy of (ill) Manners” in Contemporary English Drama, edited by C. W. E. Bigsby, Holmes & Meier, 1981, pp. 95-107. Gussow, Mel. R...
Bigsby, C. W. E. Joe Orton, Methuen, 1982. Charney, Maurice. Joe Orton, Grove Press, 1984. Dean, Joan F. “Joe Orton and the Redefinition of Farce” in Theatre Journal, December, 1982, pp. 481-92. Lahr, John. Prick up Your Ears: The Biography of Joe Orton, Knopf, 1978. Nakayama, Randall S. “Domesticating Mr. Sloane” in Theatre Journal, May, 1993, pp....
Plot. Act One. Act One opens as Kath shows a prospective lodger around the house she shares with her father and brother. Mr. Sloane is an attractive young man with an air of danger about him, and Kath is clearly attracted to him.
The American vindication of Entertaining Mr. Sloane came in 1981 when an Off-Broadway revival succeeded where its earlier Broadway production had failed.
Sharp, alarming and hilarious, Entertaining Mr Sloane is a subversive black comedy of unscrupulous sexual manipulation.
