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Ah, the good old, great old, one-set, well made three-act plays of the dear departed 1930s and 1940s!
Joseph Kesselring’s 1941 sole success, “Arsenic and Old Lace,” currently being given an antic production by the North Fork Community Theatre, is a prime, deathless example of this.
Well, not exactly deathless, for there are 13—count ’em—13 corpses and possibilities of a few more in this uproarious comedy about poisoning as an act of charity.
“Arsenic and Old Lace” has seemingly been around forever and done to lively death (I personally directed two productions of it in my high school directing days), but it just keeps coming back, as fresh and funny as ever, as absurdly believable as chocolate ants. About a family, some of whom are homicidal lunatics, it never descends into bad taste, manages to make some of the family members adorably lovable and every one of them and the other cast members that enter and leave their seedy Brooklyn mansion equally rib tickling.
The mansion of the NFCT production, designed and built and decorated by Joel Swanberg, Shawn Snyder, Dale Leavay and Marilyn Corwin, deserves a positive review all in itself. Save for a glassless window, it’s a meticulously accurate re-creation of the author’s intent, and substantial besides. Its staircase has to be substantial, of course, to accommodate Teddy Brewster (Alan Stewart, in a marvelously merry and blustery performance), who believes he’s Teddy Roosevelt and spends much of the evening charging up San Juan Hill.
The local production is presented with all of its World War II and 1940s theater allusions intact, which gives it a pleasant air of amusing antiquity—though I must admit that I found myself the only one in a full house last weekend chortling energetically over a line directed at the Brewster sisters, who’ve decked themselves out in black to attend a funeral: “For God’s sake, go upstairs and change. You look like Judith Anderson.” Age seems to have some advantages after all.
Director Shawn Snyder keeps the proceedings galloping along at a brisk pace, though his decision to tack Acts Two and Three together without an intermission does make for a marathon second half of the evening. He has a bright sense of comic timing—even if some of his characters sail blithely through punch lines, depriving the audience of some fun—and high success with many of the many actors in the cast. As in any community theater production with a large cast, there’s quite a variance in acting skills.
The two maiden Brewster sisters, who make a habit of poisoning visitors who have no family to keep them company, were played in the 1941 premiere with endearing warmth by Josephine Hull and Jean Adair. In Mattituck, Lynn Ann Wagner and Elva Victoria, though a trifle young for the parts, retain the antique and kindly charm of the author’s intention. Ms. Victoria particularly exudes a sweet remembrance of the immortal Josephine Hull.
Rusty Kransky as Jonathan Brewster, the truly homicidal maniac of the family, and Matthew S. Orr as his resident plastic surgeon, Dr. Einstein, are knee slappingly hilarious. Mr. Kransky, in Frankenstein makeup and demeanor, delivers an eerie and very funny Boris Karloff sendup. (Mr. Karloff played the role in the original and in the Frank Capra film version.) And Mr. Orr channels Peter Lorre (who played Dr. Einstein in the movie) with great slapstick success.
The premiere acting award goes to Brett Chizever as Mortimer Brewster, the sane member of the Brewster clan who’s driven crazy by discovering and then trying to hide the lethal hobby of his two jolly aunts. A theater critic who hates the theater, he’s been given wonderfully zingy lines that give voice to Mr. Kesselring’s apparent opinion of critics, such as the one delivered by Mortimer as he’s about to depart for a play he doesn’t want to attend: “I’ll save time and write the review on the way to the theater.”
Mr. Chizever takes the role of Mortimer and runs with it in his teeth, playing it for all its hysterical worth. Ninety percent of the time, he exhibits a fine sense of comic timing, working almost every laugh line with finesse.
All of the rest of the cast is pleasant and hardworking and effectively carries on the wacky spirit of this improbable and enduring comic masterwork.
The lighting by Charlie and David Scheer, Anna Kulp and Amy Dries is enhancing, and the costumes by Marilyn Corwin and Dale Leavay are nicely right, with the possible exception of a mysteriously bright red vest and bow tie worn by David Markel, who enthusiastically plays the rigid Reverend Dr. Harper, the outraged father of Elaine (Samantha Payne-Markel), the long suffering fiancée of Mortimer.
“Arsenic and Old Lace” continues at the North Fork Community Theatre in Mattituck on Friday and Saturday nights at 8 and Sundays at 2:30. The box office number is 298-NFCT (6328).
on Jan 19, 2010