CNY Playhouse delivers a hilarious version of ‘Arsenic and Old Lace’

By Russ Tarby

Contributing Writer

“Arsenic and Old Lace” is so darned funny, it’s hard to believe that playwright Joe Kesselring originally wrote it as a straight, suspenseful drama. His Broadway producers — Hal Lindsay and Russel Crouse — convinced him that the script would fare better as a comedy, albeit a dark one involving mischievous murders and inherited insanity.

Lindsay and Crouse proved right. The play premiered in 1941 and ran for 1,444 performances on Broadway, 1,337 performances in London and became a staple in high-school and dinner theater circuits. It also spawned a popular film version starring Cary Grant.

The movie fascinated a young Abel Searor, who ably directs the current production at Shoppingtown’s CNY Playhouse. “The thing that attracts me most to this story is that it’s just about a family,” Searor wrote in his Director’s Note. “This family may have a few …quirks, but all families have quirks.”

Kesselring’s play is a black comedy focused on the Brewster family, descended from Mayflowersettlers but now devolved into homicidal maniacs. The hero, Mortimer Brewster (played here by straight-faced Corey Hopkins), is a drama critic who must deal with his crazy family and local cops as he worries and waffles on his promise to marry the woman he loves, Elaine Harper (beautiful brunette Kate Crawford), the minister’s daughter who lives next door.

Mortimer’s family includes two spinster aunts — Abby (Ann Rhodes-Sweet) and Martha (Anne Fitzgerald) —who have taken to euthanizing lonely old men by poisoning them with a glass of elderberry wine laced with arsenic, strychnine and “just a pinch” of cyanide; a brother (Jason Zencka) who believes he’s Theodore Roosevelt and digs locks for the Panama Canal in the cellar of the Brewster home (which then serve as graves for the aunts’ victims).

The plot takes an even darker turn with the return of a murderous brother, Jonathan (Liam Fitzpatrick), whose face has been carved up, battered and bruised during a botched plastic surgery performed by an alcoholic accomplice, Dr. Einstein (Buddy Lee Walter) –a character based on real-life gangland surgeon Joseph Moran. Jonathan now resembles horror-film star Boris Karloff (a self-referential joke, as Karloff actually played the part on Broadway).

The acting is passable if not exactly sharp. Instead it’s as broad as the situation requires. The dithering spinsters flutter and fluster, Mortimer frets, Elaine complains
and Jencka’s Teddy is a crazy cacophonous caricature.

A few supporting performances stood out, including Walter’s Yiddish-inflected Dr. Einstein, and two cops played with authentic Brooklyn twang by Joshua Ammons and Christopher James. Actor Mike King attempted a brogue as Lt. Rooney, but the accent blew hot and cold.

As the ultra-evil Jonathan, Liam Fitzpatrick made his presence felt throughout. There’s nothing subtle about the role as written, but Fitzpatrick gave it some nuance as Jonathan tricks and cajole and charms his old aunts into doing his bidding. And when the going gets rough as it does in Act 2, Fitzpatrick rises to the occasion to convincingly convey the snarling heavy.

Christopher Lupia’s set design is one of his best. The old home has a vaguely Victorian ambiance with the living room framed by paintings stage left and a handsome colonial hutch stage right. The room’s green wallpaper is embellished with golden fleur-de-lis. And Lupia included plenty of doors for various comings and goings.

Despite the usual confusions that complicate farces, in the end Kesselring neatly ties everything up in a way that’s logical yet laughable. Unsurprisingly, “Arsenic and Old Lace” is considered America’s most beloved farce.

“Arsenic and Old Lace,” produced by Korrie Taylor, runs at 8 p.m., Thursday, Friday and Saturday, Sept. 12, 13 and 14, at 2 p.m. Sunday, Sept. 15, and 8 p.m. Sept. 19, 20 and 21, at CNY Playhouse, located near the Macy’s entrance at on the second level of ShoppingTown Mall, in DeWitt. Tickets cost $20 on Thursday and Sunday, $22 on Friday and Saturday; cnyplayhouse.org; 315-885-8960.