Flatwoods Productions will open
the winter season on February 29, March 1 and 2 with “Arsenic
and Old Lace” by Joseph Kesselring. The show will be presented
at Curfew Grange, Flatwoods. Performances will be on Saturday
evening at 8:00 p.m. with a Sunday matinee at 2:00 p.m. Tickets
are priced $10.00 for adults and $8.00 for children under twelve
and are available at the door or may be reserved by calling
(724) 366-7923.
Curfew Grange is located at the
intersection of Route 201 South and Buena Vista Road, Flatwoods
(across from the cemetery), Fayette County.
Dinner is available before all
three shows. For a menu and prices call the above number.
“Arsenic and Old Lace” is one of
the most famous comedy successes both in New York and on the
road. We meet the two charming and innocent ladies, Abby and
Martha Brewster, who populate their cellar with the remains of
socially and religiously “acceptable” roomers whom they just
happen to poison with “a little arsenic and a drop of cyanide
and a pinch of strychnine” added to the elderberry wine they
serve. Add in the antics of their brother who thinks he is Teddy
Roosevelt; another brother, Mortimer, who happens to be a New
York Theater Critic; the elder brother, Jonathan, who is a
criminal and happens to resemble Boris Karloff; and his friend
Doctor Einstein, a plastic surgeon and you have the makings of a
laughter filled night in the theater.
When Mortimer finds out what his
aunts have been doing, he can’t quite believe it and has a
terrible time convincing them that what they are doing is wrong.
Complications arise when the older brother Jonathan shows up
with a dead body in his rumble seat and a confrontation occurs
between the two brothers. And the policemen have a way of
showing up at the most opportune and inopportune times.
The show opened in New York City
on January 10, 1941, and ran for 1,444 performances. Under its
original title “Bodies in Our Cellar,” the play was sent to
actress Dorothy Stickney, who was then playing opposite her
husband Howard Lindsay in “Life With Father.” Lindsay and his
partner Russel Crouse bought the play, rewrote much of it, and
produced it themselves.
After a tryout in Baltimore, the
show opened to rave notices at the Fulton Theatre on Broadway.
Brooks Atkinson of the New York Times said, “Kesselring had
written a murder play as legitimate as farce-comedy. It is full
of chuckles even when the scene is gruesome by nature. Swift,
dry, satirical, and exciting, it kept the first night audience
roaring with laughter.”
There was a sensation at the box office the next day, because
not enough tickets had been printed to accommodate the demand.
Within eleven days, the first profit check was sent out to the
investors. The London run, which began in 1942, reached 1,337
performances, almost as many as the American production.
Of course, any show this big
would be coveted by Hollywood. In 1944, the movie version was
released. Directed by Frank Capra, it starred the hottest
leading man of the day, Cary Grant, as Mortimer. Josephine Hull
and Jean Adair repeated their stage roles. Raymond Massey
appeared in the Karloff part, and Peter Lorre parodied his usual
screen persona as the plastic surgeon.
A television adaptation with
Helen Hayes and Lillian Gish was broadcast in the ’60s. Jean
Stapleton and Polly Holiday played the Brewster sisters in a
1986 Broadway revival. A clever touch in this production had all
the poisoned old men emerge through the cellar door at curtain
call to take a bow.