Q&A with Loretta Chen: director of What the Butler Saw

Director Loretta Chen confesses her motive for bringing Joe Orton’s outrageous play What the Butler Saw to the stage, Singapore-style

When the show premiered in London in 1969, the actors were practically booed offstage as a result of the script’s explicit references to rape, incest, buggery and other eyebrow-raising topics. This bold Singaporean director talks about how she has adapted what is now considered one of the finest examples of English farce and claimed it for her own.

First I would like to hear a little about you. I’m curious, how did you start directing?

Actually I started quite by chance. I had just come back from LA, because I was doing my PhD there. So, I had just come back and I was in between deciding whether I should go into teaching or act. By that time I had figured that I probably wouldn’t act very much because I have a really bad knee. I had had three ops by then. So, I started teaching, and then by chance, I had a call from Goh Boon Teck, who is the artistic director of Toy Factory, and he calls me and he says, ‘Oh, Loretta, I would like you to direct this Chinese play’. And I said, ‘Huh, you sure? My Chinese is horrible.’ And he says, ‘Oh, you know, just do it. If you run into any troubles, I will come rescue you.’ And I said, ‘Um, OK!’

And so, I just sort of jumped in. And I think this is the first time that I realised that this is something I really enjoy doing. I think because I have always been trained as an actor I’ve always thought that I would not know how to see the bigger picture. Because as an actor you’re trained to be a little more micro in how you analyse the character, the surroundings, the context of the character. As a director, you really need to have a vision of the entire project, and you need to work with so many different people. So, at that point in time I wasn’t sure. But the minute I did it, I realised I sort of almost intuitively knew how to do that. So, that was my first turning point. I started quite recently. That was in 2005. After that, it was just strange. People started calling me to direct. I think the universe has some way of just sending me a signal that, ‘You know, Loretta, I think you should just be a director’. I have just heeded all of those signs, I think.

Do you still see yourself as an actor at all? Would you consider taking a part in a play?

I do. I actually just completed filming a short film, a very naughty film, called Dirty Bitch, directed by a filmmaker called Sun Koh. Basically it will be in the Rotterdam Film Festival because every year in the film festival they select a director to pay homage to, and this year they selected Claire Denis. And so Sun Koh is doing a film inspired by Claire Denis’ works. So, it’s called Dirty Bitch. In it I play a gynaecologist, and I rap in French! But to answer your question, I do see myself still [as an actor] because I am trained as an actor. And I will take on roles, but to be very honest, I only like to take on supporting roles or smaller roles, because when I am acting, what I am really doing is sort of taking notes to improve myself as a director. So, when I am playing a supporting role, I am actually really analysing the director, thinking, ‘Oh that’s how they work’. I try not to take on any lead roles because I think that really is a bit too much, because even when I am acting I am really trying to be an understudy for the director. I’m really trying to take notes and learn.

What is it about this play, What the Butler Saw, that you were attracted to?

Various things. I think Joe Orton as a personality has always fascinated me. I read him when I was doing my A-levels; I was doing my S-paper in literature. And being a very Singaporean student, I mean, you only get exposed to okay, Shakespeare, Pinter, Stoppard. And, I mean, they are cheeky, but you know… And then when I read Orton, I thought, ‘Oh my god, this guy is just a riot’. He was writing about anything, incest, buggery, you know. And it was so naughty. I thought at some point in my life I would love to act in a play of his. And so when I started my own company, I gave a wishlist to my colleagues, my partners, and said, ‘Oh, these are some of the plays I want to do’, and What the Butler Saw was one of them.

I think What the Butler Saw attracted me because it plays on voyeurism. And I have always sort of been attracted to the idea of a farcical sort of Alfred Hitchcock Rear Window thing, and also because at that point in time when I was a planning for the production I had just undergone a bunion surgery, which left me incarcerated for two and half months. I was literally doing the Rear Window thing. I mean I was only in a wheelchair, watching the world go by, you know. There was something very macabrely voyeuristic about that that I enjoy. No one notices someone in a wheelchair. So, I was just watching the world go by. And I did a lot of that. So, I did like the voyeuristic pleasure [of the play]. And also, I love the fact that it was set in the heady era of the ’60s where, I think, people’s attitudes were changing, society was changing – attitudes towards homosexuality, towards sex, towards religion, were all changing. It was a very tumultuous time.

Also, the other thing that Joe Orton has in the script is instead of just writing a straight farce, what he did is he actually parodied the farce. And what I mean by that is in a typical farce everything ends beautifully, you know, people reunite, there’s a big hug, and society resumes back to normal. But in Joe Orton’s farce the world is still quite bleak. So, what happens is that even though at the end of the play there is a reunion, you do know that the doctor isn’t really quite what he seems to be, because you do know he is lecherous, and you do know the mother or the wife keeps boys on the side, and she’s not all great either. So, there is something strangely morbid and macabre about the world. And I find it very relevant now, because I think we are living in a time where everything, every single thing we know about economics has been completely overturned; it’s the world turned upside down. I think the only way to appreciate it sometimes is to laugh at yourself in spite of it all.

So, more than just re-creating this time period, you think the 1960s and the form of the farce is particularly relevant for today?

Yeah! Because, what do you do? Climb a building and jump off, you know? And people are sadly doing that. And this is my way of saying that in spite of the mess we are in, I am trying to turn that darkness into some sort of thing for you to laugh at. When you are so low, the only way to go is up. And that’s what a lot of Joe Orton’s plays are about. People get into such a mess that the only way to get them out of it is to keep pushing forward and keep looking up.

How have you adapted this play by an English playwright set in 1960s England to make it fit into a Singaporean backdrop?

I did momentarily toy with the idea of making it very British. But then I realised that if I wanted to have the cast that I intended to have, I didn’t want them to have to fake a British accent… And by setting it in 1969, it was great because I think Singapore at that point in time was also tumultuous… we’d barely been independent for four years. And I thought I would use this as a backdrop for the piece.

Where can these adaptations be seen in the performance?

In the original Joe Orton play, because he is so naughty he makes all of these references to golliwogs, which of course now is so politically incorrect. When the doctor, the Prentice character, is asked about where the secretary is, he comes up with a stupid excuse. He says, ‘Oh, my secretary is making golliwogs.’ So, I changed it to, ‘Oh, my secretary is making multicoloured rag dolls for sale in the racially prejudiced areas in Singapore’.

After directing The Vagina Monologues, I’d say you have a little bit of experience with bringing taboo sexual themes to the Singapore stage. Do you think audiences will find anything in this play shocking or offensive?

I honestly think that audiences who have followed me from 251 will actually find this fairly tame. I did want, with all due respect to Joe Orton, to let Singaporeans be a bit more familiar with his work. Because he is so naughty, sometimes I think it could really turn people off. Because this play is for 16-year-olds and above, I did want to make it more accessible for them without their parents coming and saying: ‘How can you tell them about incest and buggery?’ Because, you know, it is still Singapore.

Speaking of the play’s British sense of humour, the play takes place in a psychiatrist’s office, which seems to be already the perfect set-up for a joke. So, how would you describe the play’s style of humour?

I think I would best describe What the Butler Saw as a cross between Monty Python, ’Allo! ’Allo! and Noises Off, which is an American farce. I think a lot of the actors play their intentions very earnestly. There is no sense that I am trying to be cheeky, but I am just playing my intentions very straight. They seem very straight-laced but underneath all of that straight-laced, sort of fuddy-duddiness, I mean, they are really cheeky. And I think that is really what Joe Orton was getting at. Society seems to function and everyone seems to put up this pretence of being very hoity-toity and bourgeoisie and we carry ourselves so well. But underneath all that, I mean, we are all cheeky buggers lurking behind that nice veneer. So that is what we try to play up. And Gerald [Chew] is perfect because he is like the perfect gentleman. ‘There is nothing that I can do that can hurt you because I am doctor so please remove your clothes.’ Even though he’s a psychiatrist, and there is no reason for the poor girl to remove her clothes. But he’ll say it like, ‘I need to check if you are physically fit for the secretarial job so please remove your clothes.’ And he’ll say it very straight-faced, and the audience is, of course, rolling like, ‘Oh my god,’ doing the eye roll and they’re doing like, ‘Oh my god, don’t fall for it; he’s a cheek’. So it’s that sort of humour; it’s always being ironic and parodic.

After reading the script, I couldn’t help but notice there is lot of dressing and undressing, cross-dressing, and general confusion when it comes to clothing. Is there a danger of having any kind of ‘wardrobe malfunctions’ à la Justin Timberlake and Janet Jackson?

Well, we are hoping no, but if there is then hey! [Laughs] But I’ve been quite good because I do want this to be family entertainment. So, all my actors have been warned. They will be wearing double underwear, not just the underwear that they are wearing. So, there’s the actor’s underwear and also the character’s underwear. But also, I have kept the modesty of the era by having the men wearing singlets and boxers, so you know they are never completely topless, and also for the women, because it’s the ’60s, they will be wearing corsets and longer tights. So, they are never completely running around in skanky underwear. That’s from my other play, not this one!

You mentioned a little bit about voyeurism before. Does the play’s title – and the fact that it comes from the name of a famous peepshow, one of the first soft-core pornographic movies ever made – affect many of your decisions as a director?

Oh, excellent question. The first thing that everyone thinks is that they expect to see a butler because [of the title] What the Butler Saw. But what I have done is turn the title of the play on its head. And you realise, I mean if you are sort of really smart and you get with it, you realise actually right from the get-go that the butler is actually you, the audience. Because definitely playing with the fact that it is a voyeuristic peepshow, the person that really gets full view is the paying audience, the one who puts the penny in, that’s the person that gets the full view of whatever is happening. And everyone else in the film or the peepshow has to pretend as if they don’t know that anyone is watching them. Which is very different from a lapdance, right? Because in a lapdance, the performer knows that she is being watched. They have to get on with it with a straight face. So, at the end of the day it’s true what the butler saw is going to be what the audience sees. The butler is the audience. So if any audience walks out not knowing that, they deserve to be, like, knocked on the head. If they are, like, ‘Where’s the butler?’, I’ll be like, ‘It’s you honey!’

Blurring boundaries between sanity and insanity seems to be the butt of many of the play’s jokes. Do you think the audience will leave with a little smile on their face, questioning their own mental status? Is that what you are aiming for?

You know, definitely. I think the first people that probably will be questioning themselves will be bankers and investors, right? They’ll be like, ‘Oh my god how did we get into this mess in the first place? Everything I thought was right has gone completely wrong.’ You know, I think sometimes it’s true that we make decisions, and we make it based on the premise of what feels right at that moment, and we think that that is the sanest decision to make, but sometimes it could be the most insane thing. Or you could make the most insane decision at that point in time, and say I’m just going to do this even though it sounds really ridiculous. I’m just going to get married now. Then you realise, ‘Oh my god, that was the best thing that ever happened to me’. It goes both ways. I have friends that say ‘Oh my god, I know I’m going to do a really insane thing; I’m going to get married’. And then they say, ‘Oh my god, I’ve been so happy’. Then you have people who say, ‘I think this is it; I’m going to have a baby. I’ve planned this for 10 years. I’m going to have a baby’. And then you realise the moment baby comes you’re like, ‘Oh my god, I’m still not prepared for it’. It’s totally insane. And then you realise that in life we do make decisions like that. We do things with the best of intentions, but sometimes life has a way just sort of playing jokes on us.

What was one of the more challenging aspects of directing this play?

I think a lot of it is really the actors. And I mean that with the best of intentions. I got six very good actors, and I got six very busy actors. As a result, the scheduling is a farce. Because it’s hard to get all six of them together, you know? It really is like trying to get Jennifer Anniston and, you know, the whole cast of Friends together for a reunion. It’s crazy because they have such insane schedules. And short of paying them $10 million bucks each. You know? Scheduling them is a problem. So I think the most challenging thing is trying to work around their very hectic schedules.

Do you have a favourite line or moment in the play that we should be looking out for?

‘There is no privileged class here, its democratic lunacy we practise.’

You hinted at this before, but I have to bring the conversation back. In the climax of the original version, the penis of Sir Winston Churchill makes an appearance. So, I’m very, very curious. Should we expect something similar from good old Sir Stamford? Can you reveal that at this point?

Yeah, sure, I mean I don’t know if you are going to use this in your writing, but the line has been changed to: ‘You suspect my secretary of having strown off Sir Stamford Raffles blown-off, white polymarble cock.’ Basically there has been an accident involving Sir Stamford Raffles’ statue and a seminal body part has been, pun intended, blown off. And at the end of the play, we finally discover the whereabouts of the blown-off, white polymarble cock.

What the Butler Saw plays from 7-22 Feb at the Drama Centre Theatre.

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