The Fool as Hero: Simon Gray's: 'Butley' and 'Otherwise Engaged'

The uneasy critical response that has greeted Simon Gray's Butley (1971) and Otherwise Engaged (1975) seems to stem from a distaste for their central characters, the aggressively cynical Ben Butley and the ostentatiously passive Simon Hench. John Russell Taylor, for example, may admit that he harbors some sympathy for Butley as an outcast, but only because Butley gets what he deserves.' And Simon Hench, Taylor suspects, may have achieved "philosophical calm" or may simply have "declined into the passivity of a dead object."2 While few ignore the Shavian wit that Simon Gray provides for his heroes to spout, the plays have been appreciated more as vehicles for the acting abilities of Alan Bates than as serious contributions to the drama of our time.