The varied dress, the neutral decor embellished with monotonous patterns and faded furnishings all reflect a lower-middle-class home in London, 1967. This one holds the body of the woman of the house in a casket. She’s soon displaced by a stash of cash stolen from a nearby bank next to the funeral room where she was embalmed. What happens to the corpse, the cash, and everyone connected to both make up Joe Orton’s black comedy, Loot.
Unfortunately, what happens as portrayed by students from the FSU/Asolo Conservatory is acting, rather than any sense of realism. They project knowing that they’re in an edgy comedy rather than realistically embodying the characters, who are in fact comical enough to come through as funny without “bits” and exaggerations of speech and gesture. Sometimes the latter are presentational; sometimes they’re representational. The director hasn’t made up his mind which suits best.
The basic story is that the corpse’s son Hal and boyfriend Dennis robbed the bank and are trying to get away with the cash. Fay, the many-times-married nurse for the deceased, has her greedy heart set on the new widower, McLeavy, for her next spouse. She’s not above a flirtation, though, with Dennis. In fact, she captivates him.
Enter a Sherlock caricature, Truscott, who claims to be a water-board inspector and upsets everyone and everything with his snooping, questions and commands. He can even produce a robot-like Bobby (Paul Herbig) to underscore his authority.
Truscott (winningly played by Brian Owen and with the most consistent British accent) proves to be one of the political and administration-of-justice officials Orton satirizes. Prominent among the dramatist’s other targets are religion, hypocritical attitudes toward sex, and British socio-economic class distinctions.
Olivia Williamson as the marriage-mad nurse moves well, especially in and out of a would-be mourning outfit, but tends to keep the same facial expression throughout. Obviously too young to be the widowed father, Michael Frishman gets more believably bereaved late in the proceedings.
Jory Murphy’s corpse’s son Hal seems unsure of his homosexual leanings and uses head bowing and sneers to skulk over his religious duties to his mother and loss of control over cash. As his pal Dennis, Matthew Andersen is liveliest of the men, handling his sexual inconsistencies well.
The best things about this production are the decor, lighting and costumes. Everything else is underwhelming or overdone, like the smoke coming from the main casket at one point. Though it (dry ice?) filled enough of the auditorium to give sniffles to me and coughs to others, it turned out not to have the slightest effect on the cash inside.
Opened:
January 2, 2014
Ended:
January 19, 2014
Country:
USA
State:
Florida
City:
Sarasota
Company/Producers:
Asolo Conservatory for Actor Training
Theater Type:
Regional
Theater:
Florida State University Center for the Performing Arts - Cook Theatre
Theater Address:
5555 North Tamiami Trail
Phone:
941-351-8000
Website:
asolorep.org/conservatory
Running Time:
2 hrs, 30 min
Genre:
comedy
Director:
Jonathan Epstein
Review:
Parental:
adult themes
Cast:
Michael Frishman, Olivia Williamson, Jory Murphy, Matthew Anderson, Brian Owen, Paul Herbig
Technical:
Set & Lighting: Chris McVicker; Costumes: Ross Boehringer; Sound: Steven Lemke; Voice and Speech Coach: Patricia Delorey; Fight Choreographer: Brian Nemiroff; Movement: Eliza Ladd; Stage Mgr: Erin MacDonald
Critic:
Marie J. Kilker
Date Reviewed:
January 2014
