Otherwise Engaged

by Simon Gray

Isolated university professor Simon Hench, completely and selfishly otherwise engaged in listening to a new recording "Parsifal" is continually interrupted by students, friends, lovers and life.2 women, 5 men

Genres: Plays, Theatre, Drama

48 pages, Paperback

First published November 1, 1975

About the author

Librarian Note: There is more than one author by this name in the Goodreads database.

Simon James Holliday Gray, CBE (21 October 1936 – 7 August 2008) was an English playwright and memoirist who also had a career as a university lecturer in English literature at Queen Mary, University of London, for 20 years. While teaching at Queen Mary, Gray began his writing career as a novelist in 1963 and, during the next 45 years, in addition to 5 published novels, wrote 40 original stage plays, screenplays, and screen adaptations of his own and others' works for stage, film, and television and became well known for the self-deprecating wit characteristic of several volumes of memoirs or diaries

Reviews

[David · Rating 5 out of 5]

Stephen: What have you got against having children?
Simon: Well, Steve, in the first place there isn't enough room. In the second place, they seem to start by mucking up their parents' lives, and then go on in the third place to muck up their own. In the fourth place, it doesn't seem right to bring them into a world like this. In the fifth and in the sixth place I don't like them very much in the first place.

50 years after it was first produced (in 1975), Simon Gray's 'Otherwise Engaged' (a play of his I didn't previously know) remains a provocative piece of theater. 

~ and probably a better play than the one Gray had just previously presented, 'Butley'... which I had seen on Broadway and on film (both with Alan Bates, who also starred in 'OE' in London). In 'Butley', Bates played a man who was so intellectually combative - non-stop - and such an insulting smarty-mouth - that it was tempting to tire of him (in spite of his being a dish). 

In 'OE', the one who is at least *trying* to be otherwise engaged - a publisher named Simon - is practically the polar opposite of Butley. He doesn't say all that much - unless he is being particularly pressed for an answer (esp. a detailed one). He would most likely prefer to be left alone (for as much as he could tolerate) since he knows that getting too involved in the lives of others (and even a little can sometimes be a lot) tends to come at a cost he's not all that interested in paying. 

As the play begins, Simon is attempting to settle into a relaxed enjoyment of a recording of Wagner's 'Parsifal'. I know little about opera - what, me? opera?! - but, interestingly, Wagner did not see that work as an opera but, instead, as 'a sacred festival stage play'; one depicting the search for the Holy Grail. That might suggest that Simon's aim is loftier than he can manage. 

He never gets to listen to Wagner - as he is met on with a barrage of visitors, one after the other. It's all very contrived - an entire group would not manage this kind of timing - but in the theater you get the manufactured point. In that respect, 'Butley' and 'OE' are rather similar, both protagonists are put into pressure cookers: one because he's a jerk, the other because he's a question mark. 

But then... unlike 'Butley', it may be safe to say that all of the characters in 'OE' are question marks. They may each seem defined well-enough for day-to-day activity but the case could be made that none of them are what they seem to be. Maybe that's because there's a side to each of them that appears secretive... and none more so than Simon. 

Simon doesn't just want to work around the proclivities of others - he wants to be ignorant of those proclivities, so that he can be left to arrange his own 'private' little life. Those around him seem to resent the perceived snobbery of his distance. 

All of this comes to a head when the one who suddenly feels the most removed is his wife. 

I don't mind that the play didn't convince me in total. It mostly did; I was just a bit dissatisfied with the way Simon is made to deal with his one tenant (but it works well enough in the scheme of things and Simon is still given a clever way to verbalize what he rationalizes). 

On the one hand, I can sympathize with the characters around Simon; he's a particular kind of extreme:

"In my experience, the worst thing you can do to an important problem is discuss it."

On the other hand, I can empathize with SImon's attitude about "our zestfully over-explanatory age". Those times when 'saying less is saying more' can be quite effective, and less messy. 

All told, a rather thought-provoking and often entertaining and funny play. 

[Laura · Rating 3 out of 5]

From BBC Radio 4:
A dark study of a London publisher trying to enjoy a Saturday afternoon at home listening to Wagner.

[Nick Jones · Rating 3 out of 5]

Simon Gray is one of those names that I know but knew little about. I’m not sure what his reputation is today, but he had a number of successes in the past. In the 1970s Butley and Otherwise Engaged were hits in London and had successful transfers to Broadway. His detractors painted him as a little easy, a little middle brow, a little undemanding, but he had his supporters, not least Harold Pinter who directed many of Gray’s plays...including Otherwise Engaged. And there is something a little Pinteresque about this play, but Pinter translated into middle class literary English. A shortish play divided into two acts: one setting, one continual time span. The central character is Simon Hensch: a publisher, a member of a comfortable literary middle class. Alone one weekend morning he intends to spend his time listening to Wagner’s Parsifal, but he has a series of interruptions: Dave who lives in the flat upstairs; his brother Stephen; an old university friend Jeff; and Jeff’s partner Davina. All seem to be undergoing emotional turmoil of one sort or another – Stephen is fretting about a job he has applied for and is convinced he has been rejected; Jeff is having an affair with his ex wife; Davina has tracked Jeff down to return the keys to his flat; Dave is just defined by a general sense of miserableness. Through all this Simon remains calm and objective, offering advice when appropriate; compared to the others his life seems ordered and successful; his life seems materially comfortable, but he also seems contented – his wife Beth is away, but we are told they have a successful marriage and faithful; after Jeff has left Simon turns down Davina’s sexual advances; he has none of Jeff’s cynical and reactionary misanthropy; importantly for a play with humour, Simon has a good line in witty remarks. Then, just before the interval, Simon has another visitor and there is a revelation and we have to rethink our attitudes to Simon. In the second act Simon’s character is turned on its head: his behaviour doesn’t change, he remains calmly self assured, but the other characters reassess him: now his calm objectivity seems to be an indifference based on self satisfaction. By the end the character he seems closest to is Jeff – Simon just has a witty version of Jeff’s misanthropy. Notably Simon doesn’t develop as a character, but our responses to him do. What Otherwise Engaged does it does very well - it’s a well focused and well constructed play with a sense of wit - but there is something very narrow about it: as a satire it is all a little easy. Maybe it is a play that feels very serious in intention, but not really that complex in detail. (But we can note the similarities with Pinter’s Betrayal: a story of infidelities and deceit among the literary middle classes – in both the central character is a publisher. It’s probably public knowledge, recorded somewhere in Pinter’s notebooks, but I presume directing Gray’s play inspired Pinter to construct his own infidelities into a dramatic work. And Betrayal is an vastly more interesting work)

[🐴 🍖]

huh. this one's sorta like butley turned inside out: where ben butley would say something vicious, simon hench contents himself w/ an "oh" or a rote "good god." unsurprisingly it ends up being less exciting in comparison (a few good drinks flung in assorted faces notwithstanding) but the central q is as interesting if not moreso: is simon's tranquility calculated to drive his friends and acquaintances nuts? or is it just that it provides a perfect reflective surface for all their neuroses? dedicated to harold pinter, which makes a lot of sense. (n.b. the viking hb edition features an extremely spoiler-y blurb on the back that the spoiler-averse should take pains not to view)

[Gregory Knapp · Rating 4 out of 5]

I saw Otherwise Engaged in the West End in 1976 with my parents when I was 13 years old.

It was the first time I had been exposed to "fashionable bourgeois pessimism" in a play and the first time I had seen a live topless woman. This one -- for what it's worth -- had perfect breasts.

It was a VERY memorable and educational evening at the Theatre.

[Bettie · Rating 3 out of 5]

Bettie's Books

[Razi · Rating 4 out of 5]

Everything can change in just one afternoon while timeless, changeless Wagner plays in the background.

[Robert · Rating 3 out of 5]

Read with Portland Playreaders.

[Bobby Sullivan · Rating 3 out of 5]

Act 1: Very arch, very slow. Act 2: A bit shocking, and boy does it escalate quickly to the end. I'd enjoy directing this play.

[Kendra Carlson · Rating 3 out of 5]

Interesting with the right cast; vulgar at times. Potential nudity.