Delightfully Morbid

Playwright Joe Orton has been called many things, but “tame” isn’t one of them. The 1960s-era playwright was deemed scandalous, vulgar, and amoral by the British press, which took great pleasure in attacking his macabre sensibilities and subject matter. (Orton, a homosexual, believed that challenging conventional notions of sexuality was one of the only ways to get his audiences to pay attention.) Nine years after Orton’s death, New Yorker drama critic John Lahr was more complimentary. “Like all great artists, Joe Orton was a realist,” Lahr wrote in 1976 in the introduction to Joe Orton: The Complete Plays. “He became the master farceur of his age . . . and was a connoisseur of chaos.”

Orton’s plays reflect his love of anarchy. For example, in Loot, which Theatre in the Round presents this month, Orton takes jabs at organized religion, the justice system, and social attitudes about death and morality—all in a delightfully morbid way. In the play, two young men, Hal and Dennis, rob a bank. Hours later, desperately needing to hide the money, they decide to bury it in a coffin. Unfortunately, the coffin is occupied by Hal’s recently deceased mother. The boys empty the casket, store their loot inside, and shove Hal’s mother into a wardrobe where she remains until the end of Act I, at which point some very funny things happen with the corpse. But how did Hal’s mother die? Therein lies the real problem and one of the play’s greatest twists.

It should come as no surprise that when Loot was first performed in 1965, critics were less than amused and audiences were outraged. The play, says director Terry Lynn Carlson, “was very offensive to people from a religious standpoint.” Nevertheless, Loot went through numerous rewrites, opened in London to favorable reviews, won several awards, and is now considered a comic masterpiece. Loot may leave you wondering, “Has Orton no sense of decency?” Rest assured, he does—but it’s buried six feet under. Opens Jan. 5. 245 Cedar Ave., Mpls., 612-333-3010

Reach Jaime Kleiman at jaime@jaimekleiman.com.