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Culture Theatre

Loot

LOOT by Joe Orton, directed by Jim Warren (Soulpepper). At the Young Centre (55 Mill). In rep till August 1. $28-$68. 416-866-8666. See listings. Rating: NNN


Soulpepper’s attractive production of Loot isn’t totally on the money, but it showcases a playwright who was decades ahead of his time.[rssbreak]

Loot bears the greasy, unmistakable fingerprints of its creator, Joe Orton, who was young, queer, working-class and angry as hell when he wrote it in 1965.

A darkly funny satire savaging the Catholic Church, the police and other sacred cows, it still holds up, a few religious jokes and lines about “spades” notwithstanding.

Sometime lovers Hal (Matthew Edison) and Dennis (Jonathan Watton) need to get the cash from a bank job out of Hal’s home, so with the help of Fay (Nicole Underhay), a nurse with a hidden agenda, they stash the loot in the coffin of Hal’s recently deceased mum. But what to do with the corpse? And how will they trick Hal’s religious dad, McLeavy (Oliver Dennis), not to mention the nosy bloke who claims he’s a water inspector (Michael Hanrahan)?

As he did with last summer’s double bill of Black Comedy/The Real Inspector Hound, Jim Warren knows how to ignite the farce so every door-knock and complicated plot point pays off. There’s lots of traffic to conduct on Sue LePage’s realistic set, but it’s beautifully timed.

I wish I could say the same about the dialogue, which sometimes feels slack when it should pop and explode. The dialogue-heavy end of the first act feels particularly awkward, something that might smooth out by the end of the run. And I wish there were more sexual sparks between the three younger characters.

Still, the actors never oversell their lines, even in the work’s funniest bit about theatre’s fourth wall. The strongest performance comes from Dennis, who modulates his role so he simmers in the first act and boils over in the second. Hanrahan is almost as good in a great parody of the archetypal pompous British copper.

Loot, written a couple of years before Orton’s untimely death at 34, isn’t perfect. But his anarchic spirit (what shit would he have kicked up had he lived through the Thatcher years?) feels timeless.

glenns@nowtoronto.com

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