Arsenic and old jokes: SBCC DOES ITS BEST TO JOLT JOSEPH KESSELRING’S AGING PLAY WITH ENERGY

From left, Leslie Ann Story, Christopher Lee Shortand Linda MacNeal in The Theatre Group at SBCC's production of "Arsenicand Old Lace"
From left, Leslie Ann Story, Christopher Lee Shortand Linda MacNeal in The Theatre Group at SBCC’s production of “Arsenicand Old Lace”

Many a theater major, high school or college, has done their time in a production of “Arsenic and Old Lace,” that ol’ farce about the Brewsters, the “family that slays together, and therefore stays together.” The ghosts of Cary Grant and Peter Lorre hover over the play, despite the two stars only appearing in the film version, even seven decades later. (Blame Turner Classic Movies.) It hurtles along at a brisk pace, indulges in some black but not bleak humor, and still has some clever twists in it.

On the last weekend of its run at SBCC’s Garvin Theater, Katie Laris’ production of Joseph Kesselring’s play still manages to get some mileage out of this jalopy.

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Pretty Poison: SBCC opens season with ‘Arsenic and Old Lace’

From left, Leslie Ann Story, Christopher Lee Shortand Linda MacNeal in The Theatre Group at SBCC's production of "Arsenic and Old Lace"
From left, Leslie Ann Story, Christopher Lee Shortand Linda MacNeal in The Theatre
Group at SBCC’s production of “Arsenic and Old Lace”

When writer Joseph Kesselring first imagined the story of “Arsenic and Old Lace” he saw it more as a Gothic tale, based on a notorious case of the time where the owner of a boarding house poisoned guests to get their pensions. But, rumor has it, Broadway producers Howard Lindsay and Russel Crouse convinced Kesselring to make it a comedy and so he did. The play is now a classic, community theaters everywhere still putting on productions, including SBCC’s Theater Group, who premiere the comedy this coming Wednesday.

In the play, the Brewster family is largely composed of homicidal maniacs except for the youngest, drama critic Mortimer Brewster (Jay Carlander), who comes home to marry the girl he loves, fend off police, and wonder how he’s related to everybody else. The heads of the house are two spinster aunts who murder lonely old men with elderberry wine laced with arsenic, helped by Mortimer’s brother (Christopher Lee Short) who is under the delusion he is Theodore Roosevelt and helps dig the graves for their victims. There’s a murderous older brother, too (John Bridle) who is living with a botched plastic surgery job to hide from the police.

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Home of the Brave: “Wit” Pits Poetry Against Cancer

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Mention people and cancer and the adjective “brave” pops up immediately. And in “Wit,” the Pulitzer Prize-winning first play from Margaret Edson, much bravery-of the theatrical kind-is on display. The playwright has decided to focus on a woman dying of cancer, spending the play in a medical center, allowing few supporting characters other than doctors, nurses, and interns. The actor (Allison Coutts-Jordan) portraying the woman Vivian Bearing, a professor in English specializing in John Donne, must achieve a delicate balance between dignity and debasement, between harshness and sentimentality. And because this terminal illness attacks such a stern taskmaster without, as we soon learn, a husband, children, friends, or loving students, the temptation for Edson to use the illness as a sort of punishment-repent, Ebenezer Scrooge!-must be resisted.

This performance, to run until Nov. 8 at SBCC’s Garvin Theater, pulls all the above off perfectly. Director Rick Mokler certainly took a chance with the play, with its many grim scenes likely to repel a number of people. Mr. Mokler also has invested in a play that relegates much of its time to a hospital bed set back in the stage. Fortunately, Ms. Coutts-Jordan handles everything with confidence-she is called on to carry the play and does so because there is no room in the character’s world for anybody else. She relishes the part and the audience is with her all the way.

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