July 18, 2002 performance reviewed by Frances Benn Hall
Loot, Joe Orton’s black comedy now playing at Williamstown Theatre Festival is a hilarious blend of one-liners, agile plot twists, and audacious assaults upon sanctity of church and state. It is a brilliant farce, as witty as Wilde, but much darker and totally irreverent of everything. The humor is as bizarre as it is compelling.
This humor is aimed most deeply at police corruption, brutality and ineptitude, although the Catholic Church receives a share of his bitter satire.
The action occurs in the home of McLeavy, an aging man who sits, dressed for the funeral, in the room where behind a screen his wife died. She, at the moment, reposes in a coffin in the room. Grotesque funeral displays keep arriving as does the young undertaker who is to spirit her away to the nearby Catholic Church for burial.
Because the funeral home has been trashed in connection with a bank heist, because the nurse who attended the recently deceased has a background of murdering seven husbands, because the son of the family is emotionally involved with the undertaker, who was involved in the bank heist while sleeping with the murderous nurse on the side, because the loot from the heist and the corpse take turns occupying the coffin, the plot is a complex one with surprises at every turn.
And all this is further complicated by the arrival of a police inspector from Scotland Yard, hot on the trail of the bank heist but posing as a water department inspector, since as he points out, he needs no warrant for that.
Five characters weave deftly through this interwoven plot. All are excellent, well-cast, each an exaggerated personality but always on key and behaving outrageous acts in a perfectly serious manner.
Jeffrey Jones as Inspector Truscott brings police brutality to a new high with such choreography that a “fight director” (Rick Sordelet) earns technical credits. He is so dense that he thinks a hat is a disguise. He is big, burly, dense and cruelly sadistic. His rapid- fire delivery and air of bumbling command are perfect.
Mr.Leavy, bereaved husband, anticly played by Charles Keating, is mainly innocent of all. He is the fall-guy who cannot even make it to the church with the casket without being involved in an accident and attacked by a dog. He plays much of his role in a bandaged condition (as does his wife’s corpse, but she for very different reasons). His straight delivery of funny lines and his unawareness of all that happens under his nose is marvelously funny. His background of Loot on Broadway and in various Shaw plays contribute to his expert delivery of one-liners.
Austin Lysy as Dennis is a busy boy. He has cheerfully robbed the bank, slept with the murderous nurse, begot several babies elsewhere on the side and, once they get the loot out of the house, planned to go off with Hal, son of the house and heist partner, but is tempted to marry the nurse and take her along. Agile and ingenious, his role is a delight and he so plays it.
Hal is a wimp, a loser who cannot tell a lie though he can rob a bank. He knows how to assume attitudes of proper piety beside the coffin but has no sympathy for the corpse of his dead “mum” who indeed becomes “mummy” for them all. Matt McGrath handles this role with the right shifts between assumed virtue and agile expediency.
Kelly Overbey as nurse Fay is seductive, alluring and evil as they come. Still in her twenties, she has eliminated seven husbands and is quick to the big chance, ready to leap in the most advantageous manner and very bribable.
If this all sounds confusing, it should. Only seeing this play can make sense of it all, and it does in a brisk two hours, including intermission. The pace, under the able direction of John Tillinger, never flags. There is ingenious stage business when the scripts calls for it, and a wise restraint of movement when at times the lines are the most important thing happening.
Occasionally, when fitting, there are marvelous stylized moments with all the characters in the just the right places—as when the uniformed policeman (Lee Rosen) has a brief moment of glory kissing the hand of a murderess.
Of course, this being a black comedy, the bribable inspector gets the wrong man and sends him off in handcuffs. This, Orton assures us, is what we can expect in a bumbling world of corruption.
This is a play to which one’s reaction is not neutral; Orton is out to offend. You will laugh with it or hate it. Few seemed offended enough to leave at intermission. For the rest, the evening was a rewarding one, in skillful hands.
Loot at Williamstown Theatre Festival
July 18, 2002 performance reviewed by Frances Benn Hall
Loot, Joe Orton’s black comedy now playing at Williamstown Theatre Festival is a hilarious blend of one-liners, agile plot twists, and audacious assaults upon sanctity of church and state. It is a brilliant farce, as witty as Wilde, but much darker and totally irreverent of everything. The humor is as bizarre as it is compelling.
This humor is aimed most deeply at police corruption, brutality and ineptitude, although the Catholic Church receives a share of his bitter satire.
The action occurs in the home of McLeavy, an aging man who sits, dressed for the funeral, in the room where behind a screen his wife died. She, at the moment, reposes in a coffin in the room. Grotesque funeral displays keep arriving as does the young undertaker who is to spirit her away to the nearby Catholic Church for burial.
Because the funeral home has been trashed in connection with a bank heist, because the nurse who attended the recently deceased has a background of murdering seven husbands, because the son of the family is emotionally involved with the undertaker, who was involved in the bank heist while sleeping with the murderous nurse on the side, because the loot from the heist and the corpse take turns occupying the coffin, the plot is a complex one with surprises at every turn.
And all this is further complicated by the arrival of a police inspector from Scotland Yard, hot on the trail of the bank heist but posing as a water department inspector, since as he points out, he needs no warrant for that.
Five characters weave deftly through this interwoven plot. All are excellent, well-cast, each an exaggerated personality but always on key and behaving outrageous acts in a perfectly serious manner.
Jeffrey Jones as Inspector Truscott brings police brutality to a new high with such choreography that a “fight director” (Rick Sordelet) earns technical credits. He is so dense that he thinks a hat is a disguise. He is big, burly, dense and cruelly sadistic. His rapid- fire delivery and air of bumbling command are perfect.
Mr.Leavy, bereaved husband, anticly played by Charles Keating, is mainly innocent of all. He is the fall-guy who cannot even make it to the church with the casket without being involved in an accident and attacked by a dog. He plays much of his role in a bandaged condition (as does his wife’s corpse, but she for very different reasons). His straight delivery of funny lines and his unawareness of all that happens under his nose is marvelously funny. His background of Loot on Broadway and in various Shaw plays contribute to his expert delivery of one-liners.
Austin Lysy as Dennis is a busy boy. He has cheerfully robbed the bank, slept with the murderous nurse, begot several babies elsewhere on the side and, once they get the loot out of the house, planned to go off with Hal, son of the house and heist partner, but is tempted to marry the nurse and take her along. Agile and ingenious, his role is a delight and he so plays it.
Hal is a wimp, a loser who cannot tell a lie though he can rob a bank. He knows how to assume attitudes of proper piety beside the coffin but has no sympathy for the corpse of his dead “mum” who indeed becomes “mummy” for them all. Matt McGrath handles this role with the right shifts between assumed virtue and agile expediency.
Kelly Overbey as nurse Fay is seductive, alluring and evil as they come. Still in her twenties, she has eliminated seven husbands and is quick to the big chance, ready to leap in the most advantageous manner and very bribable.
If this all sounds confusing, it should. Only seeing this play can make sense of it all, and it does in a brisk two hours, including intermission. The pace, under the able direction of John Tillinger, never flags. There is ingenious stage business when the scripts calls for it, and a wise restraint of movement when at times the lines are the most important thing happening.
Occasionally, when fitting, there are marvelous stylized moments with all the characters in the just the right places—as when the uniformed policeman (Lee Rosen) has a brief moment of glory kissing the hand of a murderess.
Of course, this being a black comedy, the bribable inspector gets the wrong man and sends him off in handcuffs. This, Orton assures us, is what we can expect in a bumbling world of corruption.
This is a play to which one’s reaction is not neutral; Orton is out to offend. You will laugh with it or hate it. Few seemed offended enough to leave at intermission. For the rest, the evening was a rewarding one, in skillful hands.