From: "Julia Thomson" <xxx@xxx.xxx>
To: <mspt@goldfishpublishers.com>
Subject: "What The Butler
Saw"
Date: Tue, 27 Jul 1999 08:11:18 -0700
Mark,
I just wanted to let you that Theater
Works produced the version of What
The Butler Saw which it received from SAMUEL FRENCH, INC.
No cuts
were made.
Julia Thomson
Managing Director
Theater Works
Julia,
I stand corrected, and am very sorry that I assumed Theater Works had made these cuts in the first place. The script that I studied in graduate school and reviewed in Boston bore little resemblance to this version. The normal running time on this play is two hours and forty-five minutes, a good hour longer than the version you were given by SAMUEL FRENCH. I was not aware that SAMUEL FRENCH had made an "American-ized" version of this script.
This is obviously a SAMUEL FRENCH Los Angeles version that has been edited for use specifically by American Community Theatres, though no notice of this has been put forward by the publisher. This has happened in the past, as with the original Equus script, and the "edited" version available from SAMUEL FRENCH, that changes some of the lines and stage directions that could be considered offensive. It's a practice I abhor, and even more when you consider that there are some who have read this version of What The Butler Saw, and think this is what Joe Orton had written in the first place.
Again, I apologize for attacking your company, when it was SAMUEL FRENCH that should have been slammed all along.
Cheers,
Mark S.P. Turvin, M.F.A
Phoenix Theatre Critic for Aisle Say--The Internet Magazine
of Stage Reviews and Opinions
http://www.escape.com/~theanet/AisleSay.html
Theatre Critic-at-Large for the Arizona Reporter
http://www.azreporter.com
Arizona Regional Reporter for Back Stage Newspapers®
http://www.backstage.com
Member of the American Theatre Critics Association™
Goldfish Publishers: http://goldfishpublishers.com
mailto:mspt@goldfishpublishers.com