The Ruffian on the Stair

by Joe Orton
21:00 Mon 5 – Sat 10 Aug 2024, The Royal Scots Club

Mike and his van work odd hours for irregular contracts; Joyce has given up her profession for a home. Enter Wilson, a cocky young man seeking help in exacting a violent and idiosyncratic revenge. Joe Orton was known for his scandalous black comedies and in this, one of his earliest plays, the themes of sex, violence and death are shown playing themselves out in the everyday lives of Mike and Joyce and in Wilson, whose love for and loss of the man he calls his brother provides the catalyst for the disruption that unfolds.

Sixty years after it was first broadcast on BBC radio, Edinburgh theatre company EGTG presents Joe Orton’s The Ruffian on the Stair as part of the company’s platinum season.

When asked why Orton, why now? Robert Wylie, directing his first play for the company, replied: “On a personal level, as a retired Occupational Psychologist and linguist, I love the language of the play, its cadences and climaxes. I also like the bleak loneliness at the heart of the play. I like its black humour, farce-like quality and its confrontational subversion and disintegration of a status quo that is not really a status quo. The ensuing panic-driven attempts to impose meaning and order on senseless, heartless events show us the ridiculous places that adhering blindly to convention will take us. And ultimately, how ridiculously self-destructive that will be.

“Just because prejudices like racism and homophobia have been legislated against doesn’t mean they no longer need to be called out. They remain just under the surface and will quickly reassert themselves given the excuse. I believe that such an excuse was offered and taken when we left the European Union and has been seen in certain anti-immigrant sentiments in the UK as well as an upsurge in nationalistic fervour in other parts of Europe.

“Orton’s play, 60 years later, reminds us there are still mindsets that, by the weight of their democratic legitimacy, would seek to suffocate the vibrancy and value that difference can bring. In The Ruffian on the Stair the consequences are played out in the public arena of nationality or in the private arena of sexual preference. Orton raised these elements for discussion in language that is allusive and ambivalent, yet unmistakably satirical, because he had to and despite legislation since, that language is still relevant today. By asserting Britishness within the EU, we have straight away emphasised what is not British and collaterally removed rights from some cultural and ethnic groups. Even if for different reasons, this leaves them uncertain and vulnerable in the same way that Orton’s characters were 60 years ago.”

Orton’s play echoes through the years like the report of a gun to jolt us out of any current complacency.

Cast:
Mike: Trevor Lord
Joyce: Lois Williams
Wilson: Ollie Hiemann

Team:
Director: Robert Wylie

The Ruffian on the Stair by Joe Orton

21:00, 5 – 10 August (60 minutes)
Hepburn Suite, The Royal Scots Club (Venue 241)

Tickets £15 via the Fringe Box Office or £12 for EGTG Members through TicketSource.

★★★★☆
“black comedy production that reaches the heart of Orton’s style”
Richard Beck for Broadway Baby

★★★★☆
“a smart and witty production of a classic British play”
Stephen Walker for The Wee Review