'Butley' opens again

The big opening of the week in fact, the only opening is a re-opening. Simon Gray's "Butley," which first surfaced last spring at Cleveland State University, will appear again with everything about it the same except the location.

Now it will be at the Berea Summer Theater on the Baldwin-Wallace campus from Thursday through Sept. 18.

If you are one to follow the machinations of the local theater community, a puzzlement should be arising in you about

now.

To wit: "Butley," which is a viscerally ripping drama about an English professor whose wife and his homosexual lover abandon him on the same day, will again be played by David Frazier.

This weekend, Frazier is winding up his role as the King of Siam in "The King and I" at Berea. To play the king, he shaved his head. Can all that hair grow back in four days?

Now that would be a show in itself. No, the theater has gone out and bought Frazier a wig. It cost $75 and was, the theater's director, Bill Allman, tells us, the most expensive single item in the budget.

Clearly this is momentous news. It gives you some idea of the critical issues of Our Time which we ponder in the waning days of summer theater.

"Butley," which has its share of ponderings, and wit, will play every day at 8 p.m. except Monday, Sept. 12.

For reservations: 826-2240.

Butley (David O. Frazier), right, and Joey (Richard Worswick)

at the moment of the day when their affair ended in Simon Gray's searing drama, "Butley." It returns to the Cleveland area Baldwin-Wallace's Berea Summer Theater.

The Plain Dealer, Friday, September 2, 1977

at

at Berea theater