It might be downright dangerous to present the loony black comedy, Loot, with the globe of a full moon overhead and an open coffin on the stage, but Stamford Theater Works took the gamble, and the result is purely good fun. Doug Moser's brisk direction of this stylish, six-member cast, led by the intrepid Ken Parker, who is at turns contentious and choleric as the honest and beleaguered widower, McLeavy, maintains a merry pace in this piece by English Playwright Joe Orton, never letting its meter run down for a moment.
Warren Karp's set is a masterful design of subtle detail; Cynthia M. August's costumes appropriate to the occasion. As the play opens, we are in the McLeavy home. Prior to the funeral, the bereaved husband is paying his last respects to his mummified wife, in the coffin, while Fay, the nurse he has hired to care for her (and looking oh so fashionable in the dear departed woman's clothes) is already plotting her marriage to him.
Andrea Bianchi is thoroughly attractive in this role of both sex object and predator, whose husbands -- all seven -- have either died from violent means or mysteriously disappeared. Patrick Darragh as McLeavy's son, Dennis, a thief, who cannot lie, and Joshua Biton as his pal, Hal, the undertaker's assistant, play well off each other. The two young dolts have stolen tons of money and hidden it all in a locked armoire in the McLeavy living room. When tall and distinguished George Taylor, playing a detective named Truscott posing as a water inspector, invades the McLeary household, mayhem abounds. In trying to hide the money in the coffin, the young robbers must give a cut of their profits to Fay, who helps remove the corpse from the coffin, undress it and wrap it in muslin. Employing slapstick and farce, this "dummy" becomes the object of humor and concern as it is thrown around between hospital bed and armoire by the desperate threesome. In the end, in order for the money to be saved, Truscott accepts bribery, but McLeavy, refusing to go along with the plan, is arrested on a trumped-up charge.
Since this is a spoof of all things traditional, the playwright takes great glee in pointing fun at religion, particularly Catholic, and even makes great sport of nudists, very popular in England. He is bound and determined to prove that crime does pay. McLeavy's best line comes when he is being carted off to jail. This is not fair, he shouts. "I've kissed the Pope!!!"
