The late British playwright Joe Orton had a particularly cynical outlook on life. Orton’s approach was to turn his cynicism into clever, outrageous and often hilarious black farce.

With his 1966 play LOOT Orton creates a world peopled with characters doing everything they can to get their hands on cash, lots of cash, as the title simply puts it, LOOT.

The play starts, in Victoria Lamb’s meticulous set, with a grieving Mr McLeavy (William Zappa) preparing for his wife’s funeral. His wife is in a coffin in the middle of his living room. McLeavy has to deal with his pushy live-in nurse Fay (Caroline Craig) who, even before his wife is laid to rest, asks him to marry her! When McLeavy steps out of the room, his amoral son Hal (Robin Goldsworthy) and Hal’s best friend Denis (Josh McConville) come up with an ingenious scheme to hide the loot that they have acquired from a bank robbery, by stashing it in the coffin, Still whilst Mcleavy is outside, Hal and Denis, grab the mother’s body out of the coffin and stash it in a wardrobe, upside down, because that’s the only way it will fit!

Hal and Denis manage to do all this before McLeavy comes back in. Then there’s a knock on the door. It’s Truscott (Darren Gilshenan), an Inspector from the Water Board, come to check out the house. He’s rather odd and very nosey, and it isn’t long before his true identity, as an Inspector from Scotland Yard, is revealed.

The witty repartee flows freely through the play. The audience cracked up with exchanges like when Denis, thinking that Truscott has finally cottoned on to their crime, says to the Inspector, ‘I guess you are going to arrest me now?! To which Truscott replies, ‘You’ve done nothing wrong’, to which Denis disbelievingly replies, ‘When did the laws change?!’.

The cast excelled with Orton’s well drawn characters. My star for the night was Caroline Craig. She made the role of satanic nurse Fay her own. A feature of her performance was the way that she sashayed across the stage in a particularly villainous way.

There was a darker side to Orton’s comedy. Orton portrayed an England where the underclass felt powerless and without any future. Director Richard Cottrell reminds audiences of this, with his choice of music as we walk out of the theatre. The song playing was none other than the Sex Pistols’s GOD SAVE THE QUEEN! It’s fair to say LOOT has a contemporary relevance considering the recent London riots.

A Sydney Theatre Company production, LOOT opened at the Drama Theatre, Sydney Opera House on Friday 16th September and runs until Sunday 23rd October, 2011.

© David Kary

1 October, 2011

Tags:Sydney Theatre Company, LOOT, Sydney Opera House, Richard Cottrell, William Zappa, Robin Goldsworthy, Josh McConville, Darren Gilshenan, Caroline Craig, Victoria Lamb, Heidren Lohr, Sex Pistols, GOD SAVE THE QUEEN, Contemporary London, London riots