Elisabeth Vincentelli

Elisabeth Vincentelli

Theater

‘Loot’ loses value over time

Few things age as badly as provocation.

Joe Orton’s black comedy “Loot” raised hackles when it opened in England in 1965. The show has all the trappings of farce — slamming doors, surprise twists, someone hidden in a cupboard — but with a gleefully amoral tone. Stolen money is stashed in a coffin, bisexual thieves are in cahoots with a sexy murderous nurse, and the person in the closet is actually dead.

In case this weren’t enough, Orton — who wrote the equally provocative “What the Butler Saw” and “Entertaining Mr. Sloane” — poked irreverent fun at authority, especially the police and the Catholic Church.

Today, nearly 50 years later, it’s hard to see why people got their panties in a bunch. The play’s barbs seem dull rather than pointed, the humor comes across as forced, and the second act is deadly.

Then again, this production is a slog. The manic mayhem that should keep “Loot” in comic overdrive is in short supply in Jesse Berger’s revival for the Red Bull company.

The plot revolves around the efforts of Hal (Nick Westrate) and Dennis (Ryan Garbayo) to hide the money they just robbed from a bank. They figure nobody will look for it in the coffin of Hal’s recently diseased mother — and to make space for the money, they store dear old mum upside down in a cupboard.

The duo receive unexpected help from the deceased’s comely nurse, Fay (Rebecca Brooksher). Hal even informs her he wants to use his share to open a brothel with an international roster of women.

“I’d have two Irish birds,” he says. “A decent Catholic. And a Protestant. I’d make the Protestant take Catholics. And the Catholic take Protestants. Teach them how the other half lives.”

This stuff may have been incendiary half a century ago, but the shock has worn off.

Still, the trio’s shenanigans are more entertaining than the antics of the corrupt inspector Truscott (Rocco Sisto), who’s particularly interested in Fay’s past.

“Seven husbands in less than a decade,” he reminds her. “There’s something seriously wrong with your approach to marriage.”

The tall, bowler-hatted Truscott looks vaguely like John Cleese in a Monty Python skit. Except Sisto, an able dramatic actor, isn’t funny.

The first act works more or less, mostly as a curio beamed from another time and place.

But Truscott’s annoying antics dominate after intermission, and the show sinks into labored humor. By the end, this “Loot” is moot.