''The Visitors'' is a 1961 one-act play by British

playwright A playwright or dramatist is a person who writes plays. Etymology The word "play" is from Middle English pleye, from Old English plæġ, pleġa, plæġa ("play, exercise; sport, game; drama, applause"). The word "wright" is an archaic English ...

Joe Orton John Kingsley Orton (1 January 1933 – 9 August 1967), known by the pen name of Joe Orton, was an English playwright, author, and diarist. His public career, from 1964 until his death in 1967, was short but highly influential. During this brie ...

. The

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and the Royal Court Theatre had considered the work but ultimately rejected it, despite both having insisted that the writing was "excellent." Orton's career took off in 1964 with the staging of his ''

Entertaining Mr. Sloane ''Entertaining Mr Sloane'' is a three-act play written in 1963 by the English playwright Joe Orton. It was first produced in London at the New Arts Theatre on 6 May 1964 and transferred to the West End's Wyndham's Theatre on 29 June 1964. Plo ...

'', and ''The Visitors'' (aka ''The Visit'') remained forgotten until its UK publication in 1998 by Nick Hern Books; a US edition from

Grove Press Grove Press is an United States of America, American Imprint (trade name), publishing imprint that was founded in 1947. Imprints include: Black Cat, Evergreen, Venus Library, and Zebra. Barney Rosset purchased the company in 1951 and turned it in ...

followed in 1999.

Synopsis

Kemp, a man facing death, is visited in hospital by his middle-aged daughter, Mrs. Platt. She and the nurse exchange optimistic clichés that completely ignore the reality of his situation.

Criticism

Elaine Showalter describes it and ''Fred & Madge'', with which it was published, as reading "as if they had just been written, and are wittier than most of what gets staged in the West End", suggesting that they should be produced. Stephen Grecco describes the two plays as "replete with the redundancies and dead ends typical of very early drafts" and considers neither play to be "riveting enough" for production. He identifies the father and daughter characters with those in ''Entertaining Mr. Sloane'', and the nursing staff as reminiscent of the character Fay in '' Loot''.

References

External links

Joe Orton online
1961 plays Plays by Joe Orton {{1960s-play-stub