STAGE REVIEWS : Fullerton College Squanders ‘Loot’ : The student cast fails to play it straight, muddying up the dialogue of Joe Orton’s depraved black comedy to the point of confusion.

The first clue that Fullerton College has done bodily harm to “Loot,” Joe Orton’s grinningly depraved black comedy about the well-heeled criminal class, comes with all those murderous British accents.

Director Tom Blank’s cast has a mean time with them, muddying up Orton’s wicked dialogue to the point of confusion. Anyone familiar with Orton knows that just won’t do. It’s all that blithely destructive talk that gets things done and makes sense of the astounding, and funny, devilments that happen along the way.

That’s not the only reason this staging is difficult to savor. Blank approaches “Loot” with the heavy steps of common farce; to make sure the laughs are there, he offers them on a platter garnished with pregnant glances, near-pratfalls and deliberate sight gags (check out Becky Wallace’s amusing but too obvious costumes).

A light tread would make more sense all the way around. Orton himself explained it best, describing “Loot” as “serious,” a piece that should be played straight to emphasize the inherent ironies of its characters and the situations they find themselves ensnared by. “A director who imagines that the only object is to get a laugh is not for me,” Orton said.

His goal was also to skewer the hypocrisies and self-obsessions of a corruptible English society. The resounding line in “Loot” is about “keeping up appearances,” which, cast against the mordant events that transpire, seems the height of sarcastic commentary. At Fullerton, however, it’s just another one-liner.

In defense of Blank and his student cast, it should be noted that “Loot” is a daunting assignment. Besides the subtexts, Orton’s basic plot is complex and exacting in its helter-skelter way.

The play’s outrageous components include a corpse that won’t stay put, a sexy, homicidal nurse (Ann Closs), a couple of bisexual bank robbers (Robert Dean Nunez and Winfield Paul Horvat), an outrageously criminal Scotland Yard detective (Patrick L. Gwaltney) and a pathetically upper-crust widower (Gregory S. Emerson)--all thrown into the same room (Ben Baird’s parlor is a tad crowded but well-crafted).

As for the performances, only Nunez comes close to setting the right tone; as Hal, he looks and acts a bit like the young Bud Cort in “Harold and Maude.” Closs has her moments as nurse Fay, but her accent keeps shifting from an aristocratic Joan Collins trill to a Cockney noise.

Emerson overdoes it as McCleavy, but the worst culprit is Gwaltney’s detective Truscott. There’s more cartoon than character in his very broad portrayal, and his accent and elocution is so thick that you miss many of Truscott’s choicest lines.

‘Loot’

A Fullerton College production of Joe Orton’s play. Directed by Tom Blank. With Ann Closs, Gregory S. Emerson, Robert Dean Nunez, Winfield Paul Horvat, Patrick L. Gwaltney and Simeon Denk. Set by Ben Baird. Costumes by Becky Wallace. Lighting by Steven Pliska. Sound by Jennifer Marchand. Plays Thursday though Saturday at 8 p.m. and Sunday at 2 p.m. at the campus’ Studio Theatre, 321 E. Chapman Ave., Fullerton. Tickets: $5 to $7. (714) 871-8101.