Review by Chad Jones of The Oakland Tribune, published July 27, 2001

Shotgun's `Loot' abounds in farcical riches

Three Stars - A hoot

By Chad Jones
STAFF WRITER

If death be not proud, then it should at least be funny.

In Joe Orton's 1965 British comedy ``Loot," the grim reaper is anything but grim. In fact, Orton, who came to a brutal end at the hands of his lover, Kenneth Halliwell, has more fun with death than Neil Simon has with neuroses.

With all the big laughs in ``Loot," it's a wonder we don't see the play done on more stages. But perhaps poking bawdy fun at religion, police, sexuality, crime and death is still too fraught with darkness for most theater companies.

Berkeley's Shotgun Players, as has been proven over and over again during the last few years, does not shy away from edginess. The irreverent ``Loot" is a terrific match for the company's youthful energy and crackle.

Even tucked into the confined quarters of La Val's Subterranean Theatre - a stage in the basement of a Berkeley pizza parlor - director Reid Davis and his cast find plenty of room to generate little jolts of comic shock.

The first of these jolts comes when the on-stage corpse (played by a well-crafted dummy), lying so peacefully in its coffin, is upended into a cupboard, head bobbling and legs askew. Two bank robbers - Harold (Andy Alabran), the corpse's son, and Dennis (Danny Wolohan), the undertaker's assistant - need a place to stash their recently lifted loot. The coffin seems a logical place, so the boys just pop the late Mrs. MacLeavy into the cupboard and replace her with stacks of cash.

The boys assume they'll be able to retrieve the money before it's buried in the churchyard, but their plot is complicated in numerous ways.

First, Mrs. MacLeavy's suspicious nurse Fay (Renee Penegor) begins to suspect that Harold and Dennis are up to something. This is a sharp woman - she hasn't had seven husbands over the last seven years for nothing - and she figures out that the boys pulled the bank job and are hiding the money somewhere in the house.

Of course, Fay wants a piece of the action, but she's got bigger business at hand. Now that Mrs. MacLeavy's out of the way, Fay is going to dig her mercenary claws into the grieving Mr. MacLeavy (Greg Lucey) and make him husband No. 8.

Fay's pending nuptials open up a whole new realm of farce because the criminally inclined Dennis, who has been seeing Fay on the side, is intent on marrying her. That doesn't sit well with Harold, who has been seeing Dennis on the sly.

Just when it seems that everyone is going to get away with everything, in walks Truscott (Jonathan Gonzalez), a meddling man who insists he's from the Metropolitan Water Board. The domineering man behaves just like a policeman, but no, he says, he's just there to check the water taps.

Through everything, the corpse of poor Mrs. MacLeavy keeps getting hauled from one indignity to another. She is stripped of her clothes and at one point even loses her false teeth and a glass eye.

Respect for the dead has no place in Joe Orton's satirical world, but then again, aside from his own talent and an attractive young man, Orton himself had little respect for anything.

The utter corruption of the things English society holds so dear - specifically the church and the law - come into great ridicule in ``Loot," and the audience relishes each stinging wisecrack.

Director Davis takes a smart approach to the farce, keeping the action swift. The play, even with an intermission, is dispatched in under two hours. The comic timing is uneven in patches, but on the whole, the adept cast, which also includes lighting designer Alex Lopez as a policeman, manages to navigate the topsy-turvy world of Orton's farce.

The British accents are dodgy - some are excellent while others are non-existent - but the characters' motivations are all clearly in place, and that's vital to the machinations of the plot.

There are quibbles to be had here, but the play is so funny and so enthusiastically performed that all qualms about this ``Loot" are moot.

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You can e-mail Chad Jones at cjones@angnewspapers.com or call (925) 416-4853.