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by John Lahr

ISBN: 0713910445
Author: John Lahr
Publisher: Allen Lane; First Edition edition (October 5, 1978)
Language: English
Pages: 408
ePub: 1764 kb
Fb2: 1773 kb
Rating: 4.9
Other formats: txt rtf doc lit
Category: Biography
Subcategory: Arts and Literature

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Prick Up Your Ears book.

Prick Up Your Ears book. John Lahr-New Yorker critic, novelist, and biographer of his father Bert Lahr (Notes on a Cowardly Lion)-reconstructs both the life and death of Joe Orton in another extraordinary biography that was chosen Book of the Year by Truman Capote and Nobel Prize-winning novelist Patrick White when it first appeared in 1978.

Prick Up Your Ears is a 1987 British film, directed by Stephen Frears, about the playwright Joe Orton and his lover Kenneth Halliwell. The screenplay was written by Alan Bennett, based on the biography by John Lahr. Islington, 9 August 1967. Literary agent Peggy Ramsay knocks on the door of playwright Joe Orton and his lover Kenneth Halliwell, but nobody opens

John Lahr (b. 1941) is an acclaimed author. He was the senior drama critic at the New Yorker for twenty years. Orton, whether he admitted it or not, needed these conservatives for his plays to work.

John Lahr (b. He has twice received the George Jean Nathan Award for Dramatic Criticism and was the first critic to win a Tony Award, for co-authoring Elaine Stritch at Liberty. Lahr himself has a fluid writing style, and the intelligence to know what to put in and what to leave out. Thus, he avoids swamping the reader with meaningless details as do many American biographers.

New York : Vintage Books. inlibrary; printdisabled;.

In the Beatles passages, being allowed into the Fab Four's "inner circle" is quite a hoot to read. Lahr talks about this tragedy at the beginning of the book, and goes to great lengths to analyze the psyche of Orton's partner and what drove him to commit murder and suicide. The psychoanalysis is brought up again at the end of the book. Prick Up Your Ears is a biography of Joe Orton, who achieved a measure of fame in Britain and the US for his plays such as "What the Butler Sa.

Told with precision and extensive detail, Prick Up Your Ears is the engrossing biography of playwright and novelist Joe Orton. Orton’s public career spanned only three years (1964–1967), but his work made a lasting mark on the international stage. From Entertaining Mr. Sloane to his career-making Loot, Orton’s plays often shocked, sometimes outraged, and always captivated audiences with their dark yet farcical cynicism.

Prick Up Your Ears: The Biography of Joe Orton. This mesmerizing story of playwright and author Joe Orton’s brief and remarkable life was named book of the year by Truman Capote and Nobel Prize–winning novelist Patrick White. Told with precision and extensive detail, Prick Up Your Ears is the engrossing biography of playwright and novelist Joe Orton.

John Lahr-New Yorker critic, novelist, and biographer of his father Bert Lahr (Notes on a Cowardly Lion)-reconstructs both the life and death of Joe Orton i. .John Lahr"New Yorker" critic, novelist, and biographer of his father Bert Lahr "(Notes on a Cowardly Lion)"reconstructs both the life and death of Joe Orton in another extraordinary biography that was chosen Book of the Year by Truman Capote and Nobel Prize-winning novelist Patrick White when it first appeared in 1978. I have high hopes of dying in my prime," Joe Orton confided to his diary in July, 1967.

John Lahr’s 1978 biography of the playwright Joe Orton may seem an unlikely choice for a book to give you hope. After all, Orton’s success was not only a long time coming (a decade of abject failure was crowned by a six-month spell in prison for defacing library books), but when it did finally arrive in 1964 (with the West End production of Entertaining Mr Sloane) it lasted only until 9 August 1967. And even when that life is cut horribly short, it still remains a testament to the enduring power of hope, and of triumph over adversity.

item 5 john lahr - joe orton biography "Prick up your ears" - allen lane hb/dw (1978) -john lahr - joe orton biography "prick up.Unclassifiable: No Bic.

item 5 john lahr - joe orton biography "Prick up your ears" - allen lane hb/dw (1978) -john lahr - joe orton biography "Prick up your ears" - allen lane hb/dw (1978). Prick Up Your Ears : The Biography of Joe Orton -Lahr, John. Prick Up Your Ears : The Biography of Joe Orton. Subject.

Comments: (7)

Joony

Do not buy the Open Road Media reissue. The pages have no margins and the print runs into the binding. Plus the cover is cropped so that some of the text is missing. Buy a used copy of the University of California edition instead.

spacebreeze

Weird book. Seems the story was backward, but a long read. Seemed like out of context.

Runeterror

Great and fast delivery

Galanjov

I have an unwritten rule which compels me to finish every book I open. LiveJournal readers know of two of my book reviews, pertaining to an alive Elvis and lesbian masochists, which were chores to get through. However, regardless of a book's length, how boring it is or how far it is from my first impression of what it might be like, I trudge through it, dreading every minute. I always give these books the chance that they might have some redeeming quality which makes the first couple hundred pages worthwhile to stick it out.

In John Lahr's Prick Up Your Ears: The Biography of Joe Orton, there was no such redemption. After rubbing the shell of this nut for 361 pages I thought I would be treated to a hidden pecan, but the shell was empty. I started this book on 17 August; that's over three weeks ago--and this book is only 361 pages. This book was the most boring read of nonfiction I have encountered in twenty years. Barring three exceptions, I fell asleep every time I sat down to read it. If I didn't believe in my own immortality, I would be worried about wasting my limited life time reading this junk.

I am a big Beatles fan, and I came across the name Joe Orton when I learned that he was approached to write the screenplay for the Beatles' third movie (after "A Hard Day's Night" and "Help!"). This never came to pass. When his script for "Up Against It" was returned, Orton wrote:

"No explanation why. No criticism of the script. And apparently, Brian Epstein has no comment to make either. F*** them."

Lahr had unrestricted access to Orton's diaries and quotes from them at length. In the Beatles passages, being allowed into the Fab Four's "inner circle" is quite a hoot to read. When Orton meets Brian Epstein and Paul McCartney for the first time, he writes:

"'The only thing I get from the theatre,' Paul M. said, 'is a sore arse.' He said "Loot" [an Orton play] was the only play he hadn't wanted to leave before the end. ... We talked of tattoos. And after one or two veiled references, marijuana."

Shortly after his Beatles script was rejected, Orton was killed by his common-law husband in the summer of 1967 in a murder-suicide. Lahr talks about this tragedy at the beginning of the book, and goes to great lengths to analyze the psyche of Orton's partner and what drove him to commit murder and suicide. The psychoanalysis is brought up again at the end of the book. Excluding the psych-talk and Beatles anecdotes, the bulk of what fills these two covers is a boring critique of each of Orton's plays. If one hasn't seen these works on stage, one is left in the dark. I couldn't follow the plotlines; the exhaustive dialogue seemed more out of context than having any pertinence to points Lahr intended to make about the playwright; and the general flow was at a snail's pace. The critiques go on and on... I could only get through ten pages in an hour. So much was quoted from Orton's plays and his own diaries, and since all the cited sections were reproduced in a minuscule font, it made poor eyes like mine very tired. I really dreaded seeing more lines of dialogue reproduced as evidence of Orton's personality or reflections of what he was going through domestically.

Orton's diaries were more interesting, especially his tales of trolling for anonymous sex in the public toilets of London and around the world. Orton held back nothing in his own diaries, and he probably would have loved knowing that people are now reading about his sexual escapades. I make this remark because Orton loved to talk loudly about lascivious topics in very public places. He would write about how he and friends would sit in an upscale restaurant and during a crowded lunchtime they would all talk oblivious to everyone around them about a (fictional) gay orgy. He and his friends got their kicks out of other people's shocked reactions. He was just like a little boy in his enthusiastic retelling of how people shuddered in horror at the tales he would tell. This carried over into his plays, as his subject matter often found him in hot water with censors as well as his paying audience.

Orevise

Prick Up Your Ears is a biography of Joe Orton, who achieved a measure of fame in Britain and the US for his plays such as "What the Butler Saw." Orton, who was gay, got much of his literary education from his lover. The lover, who went from being the dominant person in the relationship to the lesser when Orton became famous, eventually developed such a rage against Orton that he murdered him and then killed himself.
Orton's plays are often funny, but not deep. They depend on the breaking of social and sexual conventions. Now that those conventions have largely been broken anyhow, Orton's plays seem less shocking than they were at the time. Orton liked to be thought of as another Harold Pinter, but somewhat to his horror he found that his admirers included conventional middlebrow playwrights of the day. In fact, Orton's plays do have more in common with the works of these more conventional writer than with Pinter. Perhaps Orton's greatest comic invention were his letters to the editor of various British publications, always written under a false name and always espousing an absurdely conservative point of view. Orton, whether he admitted it or not, needed these conservatives for his plays to work.
Lahr's biography is well researched, and is likely to remain the definitive biography of Orton. Lahr himself has a fluid writing style, and the intelligence to know what to put in and what to leave out. Thus, he avoids swamping the reader with meaningless details as do many American biographers.

Burirus

Joe Orton was an original, no getting around it. His plays, especially "Entertaining Mr. Sloan," "Loot" and "What the Butler Saw" are considered classics of the blackest form of comedy. He enjoyed shocking people, while always maintaining that his characters and the situations he places them in were grounded in reality.
This is a theatrical bio as bold and brash as its subject. Lahr has done a thorough job of exposing this most controversial of playwrights. Joe was a sexual compulsive, an in-your-face homosexual who enjoyed sex with strangers in public places. He also loved to brag about his exploits, never skimping on a detail.
Just when "things" were finally coming together for Orton professionally, things were beginning to unravel for his companion Kenneth Halliwell, who brutally murdered Orton in August 1967. Some would say his rude death befit how he lived the rest of his life. I think that would be judging Joe too harshly. Perhaps he would have been a flash-in-the-pan or as lasting and popular as Stoppard. We'll never know. That's the tragedy. Good job Lahr.

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