LOOT by Carol Kaufman Segal

Joe Orton (1933-1967) was an English playwright and author whose life was short but highly significant.   Unfortunately, he was murdered by his jealous partner, Kenneth Halliwill, who after murdering Orton, committed suicide at the age of 41.   Orton was prolific in his lifetime having written ten plays, some still very popular today, and three novels, one of which was written with Halliwill.

One of Orton’s plays, a dark comedy entitled Loot, is playing at the Odyssey Theater in West Los Angeles, and still entertaining audiences with its unusual sense of humor.  It takes place in a room of McLeavy’s house (Nicholas Hormann), in London, 1966.  Mrs. McLeavy (Selina Woolery Smith) has died and her open coffin, with a full view off her body, lies in the center of the room. 

            

Fay (Elizabeth Arends), Mrs. McLevy’s nurse during her illness, arrives and offers her condolences to Mr. McLeavy as they await the time for the casket to be picked for the funeral procession and burial.  However, she wastes no time in turning her conversation to him to consider remarriage, and to her, of course!

            

Arriving at the house are McLeavy’s insufferable son Hal (Robbie Jarvis) and his equally unbearable lover Dennis (Alex James-Phelps).  Dennis arrives in a chauffeur’s uniform as he is also scheduled to drive the limo for the funeral.  However, that is not the only reason he has come to the house with Hal.  It turns out that they are the culprits who stole a huge amount of money from the bank and are trying to figure out where they can hide such a large stash.  Hal has hidden it in the cabinet, but decides it would be safer to hide it in the coffin with his mother.  When it turns out that the coffin can’t hold his mother and the money, he decides to put his mother in the cabinet and hide the money in the coffin!

           

The situation runs out of control from then on.  Fay joins the boys as they try to figure out the best way of hiding the body and the money between the casket and the cabinet!  The arrival of Inspector Truscott (Ron Botitta), who is looking into the bank robbery, adds to the confusion and their plight.  We find out that Fay has been married seven times and all seven husbands suffered mysterious deaths.  Could it be that Mrs. McLeavy did not die of natural causes?

           

The play ends in a surprisingly and unexpected way, a way in which Joe Orton revealed his outlook about life and its hypocrisies.   He was an extremely clever writer, and although his work is over fifty years old, I believe people today are far more accepting of it, and its humor, than they were during his time.  Bart DeLorenzo directed this very fine production.  The cast is superb in bringing life to these characters, except for Selina Woolery Smith who is equally superb as a corpse!

Loot plays Fridays and Saturays at 8 PM, Sundays at 2 PM, through August 10, at the Odyssey Theatre, 2055 S. Sepulveda Blvd., Los Angeles.  Tickets are available at www.OdysseyTheatre.com, or by phone at (310) 477-2055.

           

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