Laughing At Death Interplayers Ensemble Stages ‘Arsenic And Old Lace,’ An American Classic That Has Been Produced Everywhere From Broadway Houses To High School Drama Clubs
Has there ever been a theater group that has NOT performed “Arsenic and Old Lace”?
And if not, why not?
The Interplayers Ensemble cannot be accused of that crime against American comedy, as it launches its second production of this classic American celebration of homicidal mania.
Interplayers first succumbed to the charms of arsenic-laced elderberry wine in 1986. That time, “Arsenic and Old Lace” was the biggest hit of the Interplayers’ fifth season. A young actor named Michael Weaver played Teddy Brewster, the nutty brother who thinks he’s Teddy Roosevelt.
This time around, Weaver provides a welcome link with the past by reprising his performance. The Spokesman-Review’s theater critic said in 1986 that he gave the role “its rightful, unbridled share of lunacy.”
Joseph Kesselring’s “Arsenic and Old Lace” is probably as well-known as any mid-20th-century American stage play, right up there with “Our Town,” “Glass Menagerie” and “Death of a Salesman.”
It has been produced scores of times in huge Broadway houses and tiny high school drama clubs. And those who haven’t seen it live have probably seen Frank Capra’s wildly successful 1944 movie version, starring Cary Grant and Peter Lorre.
What most people don’t know is that this play was originally intended as a serious thriller, titled “Bodies in the Cellar.” The Brewster sisters weren’t the cute little old ladies that we know and love. They were sinister murderers.
Legend has it that Howard Lindsay and Russel Crouse, the team responsible for “Life With Father,” couldn’t help but laugh when they read it. So they turned it into a comedy, adding such touches as the bugle-blowing Teddy Roosevelt character.
Yet turning it into a comedy had its own risks. Would people actually laugh at little old ladies who dispatch their gentleman callers and dump them in the cellar?
“It is my studied … conviction that we either have a very big hit or we will both be run out of town by an outraged citizenry,” Lindsay is quoted as having said.
The former was the case.
“You wouldn’t believe that homicidal mania could be such great fun,” said critic Richard Lockridge of the New York Sun.
The show ran for 1,444 performances, one of the longest runs ever for a nonmusical. And it never really disappeared after that, since it was immediately embraced by professional and amateur groups all over the world.
The Interplayers production has one other link with the past. Artistic director Joan Welch directs this version, just as she did in 1986.
The cast features two Interplayers newcomers as the Brewster sisters: Jo Ann Buchanan and Alis Parris.
Steve Barron plays Mortimer, the Cary Grant role. The rest of the cast includes Angela DiMarco, Peter Murray, Scott Campbell, Andy Gwynn, Gary Pierce, Kasey Kilgore, Scott Finlayson, Jonah Weston and Weaver.
This sidebar appeared with the story: ON STAGE `Arsenic and Old Lace’
Opens Friday at the Interplayers Ensemble, 174 S. Howard, and continues through Dec. 16. Showtimes are 8 p.m. on Fridays and Saturdays, 7:30 p.m. on Tuesdays, Wednesdays and Thursdays and 2 p.m. matinees on Saturday, Wednesday and Dec. 2. Tickets are $18.50 and $15.70 for evening performances, $14.45 for matinees and Friday’s opening-night performance. Tickets for patrons under 25 are $10 for any performance. The Lunch Hour Hot Tix program offers tickets for $10 every Tuesday, Wednesday and Thursday between the hours of noon and 1 p.m. at the theater box office for that night’s performance only, maximum of two tickets. For reservations call 455-PLAY.