Inspector Truscott of Scotland Yard is keeper
of the keys in the land of Topsy-Turvydom in Red Bull Theater’s madcap revival
of Joe Orton’s Loot.
Loot was one of three full-length plays (the
others were Entertaining Mr. Sloane, and What The Butler Saw) that Orton penned
between 1964 and the time of his brutal death three years later at the hands of
his long-time lover Kenneth Halliwell.
With his death, Orton’s quick-fire output
solidified his legacy and his reputation as an iconoclastic writer who used dark
humor to skewer the Church and persons in positions of authority.
Although Orton provided Loot with a wafer thin
plot and occasional swerves in tone, the play is anarchically comical, like the
best of the Marx Brothers movies (e.g. Duck Soup).
The “Groucho” of the play is Inspector
Truscott, performed here to the very edge of manic madness by Rocco Sisto. Truscott
has invaded the home of the McLeavy family just as they are about to hold
funeral services for the recently deceased Mrs. McLeavy. He is ostensibly
investigating the theft of a large sum of money (of which the McLeavys’ son Hal
and Hal’s undertaker buddy Dennis are, indeed, guilty).
In order to conceal their crime, the miscreants have
pulled the corpse out of the coffin and replaced it with the “loot.” Thereon
hangs the plot. But all of this is
merely an excuse for Orton’s quite funny dialog, in which it is possible to
find echoes of Oscar Wilde, W. S. Gilbert, Lewis Carroll, and the
aforementioned Marx Brothers.
Truscott, who despite having the best lines, represents what Orton saw as the stupidity, the oafishness, and the corruption
of the police. There is, for example, a scene in which he smacks around
one of the suspects—a bit of realism that does shock us out of the comic
absurdity of most of the rest of the proceedings (as does a reference to
Pakastani child prostitutes). With Orton, what you see is what you get.
Truly, though, Truscott is an inspired invention.
All through Act I, he justifies his takeover of the McLeavy household by insisting
he is a representative of the “Water Board,” there to inspect the plumbing. (Although
Orton clearly was not referring to “waterboarding,” that does add an
appropriately contemporary image he would undoubtedly appreciate as another
opportunity to wag a finger at authority figures).
When Truscott is finally forced to confess his
subterfuge, he brushes it off this way:
“Any deception I practiced was never intended to deceive you,” a line
that Oscar Wilde would have been delighted to lay claim to.
Another gem is Truscott’s boastful story of how
he broke the case of “the limbless girl killer.”
“Who
would kill a limbless girl?” he is asked, as
a picture out
of Shakespeare's Titus Andronicus
pops into mind.
“She
was the killer!” he explains, though he
refuses to elucidate
lest it trigger a run of
copycat crimes.
Try wrapping your head around that image.
Loot is full of these fantasmagorical twists of
language that are constantly flying around the set—along with Mrs. McLeavy’s
mummified body (Another Truscott-ism: “The theft of a pharaoh is something
which had not crossed my mind”).
Even though Orton undoubtedly planned the set
pieces carefully so as to allow for the word play, most of these bon mots feel
anything but forced; rather they seem a logical reflection of the crazed minds of Inspector Truscott
and the other characters. These include Hal
(Nick Westrate); Dennis (Ryan Garbayo); another member of the police force,
Meadows (Eric Martin Brown); Mr. McLeavy (who, as played by Jarlath Conroy, equals
Mr. Sisto as master of the requisite tone and timing of Orton’s twisted
variation on farce); and Fay (Rebecca Brooksher), the homicidal nurse and
devout Catholic who—having worked her way through seven husbands, all
deceased—is eyeing the others in search of Number Eight.
Red Bull Theater, helmed by its founding
artistic director Jesse Berger, built its reputation over the past decade by
offering rarely produced Jacobean dramas and other plays of “heightened
language,” along with a well-regarded program of readings. It is good to see
the company expanding into producing contemporary works like Loot.
Coming up in the spring will be a revival of
Charles Ludlam’s The Mystery of Irma Vep, another outlandish work that
is right up Red Bull’s alley. Should be
fun! Meanwhile, there’s Loot, which is
set to run to February 9 at the Lucille Lortel Theater.
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