Arsenic & Old lAce - Center Stage

Set ting the STage
Arsenic & Old Lace
by Shannon M. Davis, New Media Manager
Characters:
The Brewster Family…
Abby and Martha Brewster, two elderly spinsters
Their nephews:
Mortimer, a theater critic
Teddy, a.k.a. Teddy Roosevelt
Jonathan, a serial killer
…and Friends:
Elaine Harper, Mortimer’s sweetheart
Reverend Harper, her father
Dr. Einstein, Jonathan’s sidekick in crime
Mr. Gibbs, a would-be tenant
Lieutenant Rooney, Officer Klein, and Officer O’Hara, the local police force
Mr. Witherspoon, superintendent of Happy Dale Sanitarium
Setting:
The living room of the Brewster home in Brooklyn, September 1941.
New York is hectic on the eve of World War II, but in the stately Brewster home, Victorian
manners are still in fashion. Abby and Martha Brewster, ladies of refinement, take pride in
having even the most casual guest to tea in their parlor; and if that guest should expire, the
window seat provides for impromptu storage. But it’s not the tea that does it—when spiked with their
signature blend of arsenic, strychnine, and cyanide, tea “has a distinct odor,” Martha explains to her
distraught nephew Mortimer. No, it’s the Brewster sisters’ homemade elderberry wine that conceals
the taste of the poison and sends lonely gentlemen callers (12, so far) into the hereafter—and the cellar,
where enthusiastic nephew Teddy channels President Roosevelt by digging a new lock for the Panama
Canal as a final resting place.
What’s poor Mortimer to do? His sweetheart’s on her way over and his aunts have a disconcerting
habit of murdering visitors. But his problems are just beginning: his black-sheep brother Jonathan
turns up on the lam, with crooked plastic surgeon Dr. Einstein and another dead body in tow. With
Grandfather Brewster’s laboratory upstairs—the old man “always used to have a cadaver or two around
the house”—Jonathan’s convinced that his childhood home is the perfect place to set up operations.
The first order of business? Re-do his face, which Einstein drunkenly carved into the spitting image of
Frankenstein actor Boris Karloff. With two fresh bodies and only one empty grave in the basement, the
sleepy Brewster house gets pretty crowded, even before the police show up to discuss the finer points
of playwriting with Mortimer.
The comic mayhem of Arsenic & Old Lace, Joseph Kesselring’s most famous play, has made it a true
classic. Much like Abby and Martha’s secret recipe, the combination of screwball comedy and gothic
chills is a potent mix, sure to send a few delicious shivers up your spine—but don’t worry, we promise
you won’t die laughing.
Next Stage: Arsenic & Old Lace |