SOURCE: Rusinko, Susan. “What the Butler Saw.” In Joe Orton, pp. 97-115. New York: Twayne Publishers, 1995.

In the following essay, Rusinko reviews previous critical opinion of What the Butler Saw, connecting the play with a theatrical tradition of farce and with the social unrest of the 1960s.

RANCE:

… I've published a monograph on the subject [madness]. I wrote it at the university. On the advice of my tutor. A remarkable man. Having failed to achieve madness himself he took to teaching it to others. 

PRENTICE:

And were you his prize pupil? 

RANCE:

There were some more able than I. 

PRENTICE:

Where are they now? 

RANCE:

In mental institutions. 

PRENTICE:

Running them? 

RANCE:

For the most part. 

(Plays [Complete Plays], 386)

Had Orton lived to see the first production of What the Butler Saw, he might have celebrated a kind of madness in the ironies associated with the posthumous production...