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April 17, 2006 C ontact: Josh Machamer Madcap British Comedy on Tap at Cal Poly in May SAN LUIS OBISPO – Cal Poly’s Theatre and Dance Department will present Joe Orton’s comedy “What the Butler Saw” at 8 p.m. Thursday through Saturday, May 11-13 and May 17-20, and at 2 p.m. Saturday, May 20, at the Spanos Theatre on campus. The play follows a psychiatrist’s desperate cover-up of his attempted extra-marital affair, which turns the hallowed halls of a state mental clinic into a madcap, farcical blitzkrieg of sexual misadventure. “Truth takes a backseat to self-preservation, as the committed, the sexually depraved, the drunks and perverts in the play frolic in unmitigated madness,” said Josh Machamer, assistant professor. Originally produced posthumously in 1969, Orton’s British farce celebrates the “inadequacy of identity.” The play still resonates with audiences today. Biographer and theater critic John Lahr said the play establishes an “environment of macabre outrageousness … By the end, the world is metaphorically and physically stripped to reveal a cultural mindset of conventional suffocation.” Tickets are $10 to $12. For ticket information, call 756-2787. For information about the play or Cal Poly’s Theatre and Dance Department, information, contact Machamer at 756-5560 or jmachame@calpoly.edu or go online to http://www.cla.calpoly.edu/thtrdanc/index.html. # # #
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