Booty (play)
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| Title: | prey |
| Original title: | Loot |
| Genus: | play |
| Original language: | English |
| Author: | Joe Orton |
| Publishing year: | 1964 |
| Premiere: | February 1, 1965 |
| Place of premiere: | Cambridge |
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Loot (Original title: Loot ) is a play by the British playwright Joe Orton , which was premiered on February 1, 1965 in Cambridge .
action
Mrs. McLeavy has passed away and is laid out in the house. Her wealthy husband is urged to remarry soon by the nurse Fay, who has secretly killed her seven previous husbands and who has also killed Mrs. McLeavy.
McLeavy is about to propose to her when son Hal and his friend Dennis, who works at the funeral home, show up. The two robbed a bank and then hid the money in the closet, where Fay discovers it. In return for a share in the loot , she hides the crime from McLeavy and helps the two find another hiding place for the money. So she puts it in the coffin while Mrs. McLeavy's body is stowed in the closet.
The funeral of the money-filled coffin is already under way when Police Commissioner Truscott appears, who has already become suspicious. He tries to corner those who stayed at home, Fay and Hal, with his questions. By chance he discovers the body in the closet, but Fay manages to convince him that it is her sewing doll. Meanwhile, the funeral procession was involved in an accident and McLeavy returns with the damaged coffin.
After further complications, in the course of which the coffin is moved back and forth, Truscott finally discovers the money and identifies the body as Mrs. McLeavy's. But he decides not to arrest the criminals, but to let himself participate in the booty as well. He succeeds in blaming the innocent McLeavy, so that he ends up in prison as a confidante and, as Fay suggests, ideally should perish there.
intention
“Booty” is a satirical farce, the aim of which is to “expose the illusions of bourgeois pseudo-morality and to confront people, especially the representatives of social institutions, with their own depravity ...” , explains Hubert Zapf in “Knaurs Großes Acting leader ”.
The various entanglements in the play, which result in multiple transports of the coffin and also repeated changing of the corpse, are a means of farce and irony to emphasize social criticism. However, there is a risk that this criticism will be masked by exaggerated exaggeration.
Performances
The German premiere took place on March 9, 1966 at the Deutsches Schauspielhaus in Hamburg, as did Orton's first play, Be nice to Mr. Sloane . The director was Hansgünther Heyme .
In 2009 Herbert Fritsch and Tilman Raabke staged the play, which was newly translated by René Pollesch , at the Oberhausen Theater .
In 2013 the production was performed again as part of an exchange guest performance in the Garage X Theater Petersplatz .
Film adaptations
The play Loot was made into a film in 1969 and was released in Germany under the title “The biggest crooks far and wide”. Richard Attenborough played Truscott and Lee Remick Fay.
criticism
"The Oscar Wilde of the welfare state nobility."
Web links
- Loot in the IBDB
- Loot in the Internet Movie Database (English)