Butley: A Play

by Simon Gray

Book Overview

One of a series of children's books featuring individual characters from the "Winnie-the-Pooh" story books. This particular boxed set features four stories of Tigger, with the characters of Pooh,... This description may be from another edition of this product.

• Format: Paperback
• Language: English
• ISBN: 0670003727
• ISBN13: 9780670003723
• Release Date: October 1972
• Publisher: Penguin Group
• Length: 78 Pages
• Weight: 1.05 lbs.

Customer Reviews

A Downer But Still Funny

I saw Nathan Lane in Simon Gray's "Butley" on Broadway on January 6, 2007. The Playbill has a caricature of a very somber, ravaged, disconsolate Ben Butley on the cover. Lane, perfectly cast, gave an excellent performance, but I left the theater feeling downhearted after experiencing Ben, a self-loathing, selfish, and nasty university professor who treats everyone to a taste of his vile nature. In the space of a few hours he loses two people close to him, his wife Anne and his academic colleague and lover Joey, both of whom have mistakenly loved him. The audience sees a man who can be funny, sardonic, wickedly vindictive, and a sorry and miserable excuse for a human being. He loves to deflate people with his devastating insults; he gets his kicks out of being malicious. He's too bright for his own good. The dialogue, often hilarious, is worth the price of admission, but watching the disintegration of a despicable man can be very trying. Joey says, "You spread futility, Ben. It creeps in like your dirty socks do." This play had its first performance in 1971. Simon Gray died at 71 in August of 2008. Well-constructed and clever, the play observes the unities of time and place, has funny lines, but the title character is a nasty piece of work, too much of a bad thing for an afternoon or evening of theatergoing.

Neo-classical tragedy in Academia

Like Prometheus bound to a rock in Aeschylus's tragedy, Ben Butley is bound to his office as a series of messengers from his personal life appear to give him bad news. Butley may be too sloshed, too witty, and too careless about his love life for his own good, but out of all the noisy self destruction you can hear strains of genuine concern, faintly for his child and clearly for literature. Readers of the play will get more out of it if they know something about poetry: a little of Robert Herrick, John Milton, John Suckling, and Richard Lovelace; more of Beatrix Potter (especially "Diggory Diggory Delvet," "Apply Dappley," and "Ninny Nanny Netticoat"), and especially of T.S. Elliot's "Marina." Some familiarity with British class prejudices will also help. But the play is bitingly funny even without all the Anglo-context. It makes an excellent choice for English course syllabi so long as bisexuality and homosexuality won't distract student readers. The brilliant American Film Theater version of the play (available on DVD) features Alan Bates in his finest role.

a dark and accurate view of the academy

Many contemporary plays and films try to tackle the image of the university and the professor, but few succeed in really giving you the flavor of this odd group of overeducated professionals. Butley gives you the horrid little truth about what Professor Van Voris of Smith College once called "the world's _second oldest profession_." Alchoholism, homophobia, and a genuine fear of students haunt this acid, funny, and yet somehow deeply sad book about a professor of English, his untenured protege and others. A must read for anyone interested in the weird sad little world of academia.