Review: Entertaining Mr Sloane at OSO Arts Centre

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Entertaining Mr Sloane, Joe Orton’s classic play – born out of tumultuous times and frantic need for LGBTQ storytelling – is and always has been a difficult one. The line between an utter absurd and dark grotesque – line aptly name Ortonesque – has always been blurry, Keith Merrill’s production makes this line possibly even blurrier. And in a good sense – the form of rehearsed reading adds to its simplicity and underlines the casual tones in the dialogue, rather than falling into extensively Pinter-ey tones.   

Sonny Pilgrem plays the title character with a kind of understated sadistic enjoyment. He’s very effective in making the audience doubt every single word he utters: himself a tragic figure, Sloane is also a murderous psychopath, after all. In the Ortonesque world, being environmentally degenerate and being personally degenerate are complementary rather than exclusive. We can never be fully sure if what he’s saying is true and his reasons behind staying at Kath’s place are deliberately obfuscated.  

Harriet Thorpe takes Kath – an absurd, cringe landlady figure – and provides her with a human aspect. She is simultaneously disgusting and pitiable; at the same time cunning and desperate. When she ends up being pregnant, she basically is having a baby with her baby which only adds to the play’s ostentatious incestuous absurd. There is something tragic about her character, and something niggling about Thorpe’s portrayal of said character, as she makes the audience comfortable with being persistently uncomfortable.  

Alan Cox brings off a prodigious success as Ed, Kath’s brother, Kemp’s estranged son and closeted (not very subtly) homosexual. He exudes notes of anger and frustration above all other feelings, even moreso that his sexual temperaments can never be as explicit as his sister’s. Providing Sloane with a decent job and eager to forgive him for everything save being “vaginalatrous” (even murder of his own father), he appears to be falling into Sloane’s snares till the play’s very last minutes: one may argue that it is him who has the upper hand among the ill-fated trio.  

It is a success. This rendition of Entertaining Mr Sloane stays fixed in mind, due to its fruitful minimalism and powerful simplicity, crowning the captivating theatrical experiment that Salon is. Here’s to many more! 

The Salon is an interesting theatrical enterprise – aiming to stage plays both new and established, it caters to many different audiences. Entertaining Mr Sloane, a classic 1964 play, has just recently premiered at the OSO Centre in Barnes, with The Salon now heading to The Other Palace with Nicky Silver’s The Einstein Letter.