One of the most successful plays of recent British stage history, Butley explores the complex relationship between the university lecturer Ben Butley and his former star pupil--now also a lecturer--Joey. The play takes place in the course of a single day and is set in the disheveled office in a college of London University that Butley shares with Joey. He also shares with Joey, we soon learn, his bed and bard. Butley's short-lived marriage has just broken up, following which he has invited Joey back to live with him. The play opens in the morning of the first day of classes following a brief holiday. Joey, instead of spending the holiday with Butley, has gone off with another suitor, a fact Butley is not yet prepared to cope with, as he is unprepared to accept the collapse of his marriage. Butley's painful discoveries about himself and those he loves--or pretends to love--are made against a background of petty academic politics and intrigue. Hardbitten and cynical on the surface, brilliant and devious in his thought and language, Butley emerges as a moving and touching character. "Butley ... could well join that distinguished gallery of human debris represented by Willy Loman, Jimmy Porter, and Bill Maitland in post-war drama," wrote Milton Schulman in The Evening Standard (which named Butley the best new play of the year). "What is so wondrous about he play ... is its ability to be funny. The stark, unsentimental approach to the homosexual relationship, the cynical send-up of academic life, the sceptical view of teacher-pupil associations are all stunningly illuminated by explosions of sardonic, needling, feline, vituperative, civilised lines."--Publisher's description