Tony Candidate 'Butley' Is Gay, Literate, Nasty

By Peter Bellamy

Staff Writer

NEW YORK-University students and faculty members from coast to coast

bellamy on broadway

should be fascinated by Alan Bates portrayal of a brilliant, destructive homosexual lecturer in (Butley" at the Morosco Theater.

In this drama Bates is the perfect prototype of the witty, vengeful type of homosexual lecturer in "Butley" more interested in his own sterile vanity and love life than in the needs of his frequently duller but more sincere heterosexual students.

With a constant flow of acid bon mots and withering epigrams. suggestive of a second-rate Oscar Wilde. he is also reminiscent of the mercilessly caustic "Man Who Came To Dinner" and a high-level intellectual version of "The Boys in the Band."

SECURE in his tenure at the University of London. Butley has a magnificent knowledge of English and the classics. His wit is faster than an adder's tongue. Like some of his heterosexual counterparts, his intellectual snobbery has developed to the point of overripe fruit.

Devilish in insinuation and innuendo. he keeps fellow faculty members in a constant state of unhappiness. With his occasional high falsetto, penchant for mad nursery rhymes and talent to amuse, he is like Falstaff totally corrupt. dangerous and hollow. Unlike many

talented.

creative. charming homosexuals who are loyal beyond the bonds of their own ilk. Butley is an utter scoundrel.

He is irresponsible toward his students, his male lovers and the short-term wife by whom he has had a daughter. He is disloyal to everybody. It is to be suspected toward the end of the play that even he realizes that an ego trip is not enough.

TO MAKE Bates's performance even more difficult he has to impersonate a physical slob and an unmade bed. He has a bleeding cut on his cheek. obviously suffered while falling down drunk. His perpetual hangover would indicate that even his hair hurts.

His clothes are dirty and his shoes look like gutter rejects. He cleans his hands on a banana peel.

Asked if he misses his marriage he replies: 'Only for the sex and violence and these days you can find these almost anyplace."

The play was written by Simon Gray, who since he is now a teacher of English literature at the University of London must know some-

thing of the Butley type. While it is perhaps an overdrawn composite, it is brilliant in individual particulars. Superbly literate, too.

BATES is on stage the entire length of the play. Without him it might not work. Without perfect casting at the Play House. it certainly wouldn't work. One shudders at what might happen to it in the hands of less than perfectly talented community theaters.

It's more than possible to suppose that "Butley" may receive a Tony as this season's best foreign play and that Bates will be awarded a Tony for the best performance in a serious play. If "Butley" doesn't tour. and it seems impossible. any Cleveland theater that attempts it should send not only for the script, but also insit on the "prompt" book. The timing is tricky.