Arsenic and Old Lace (play)
Encyclopedia
Arsenic and Old Lace is a play by American playwright
Joseph Kesselring
, written in 1939. It has become best known through the film adaptation
starring Cary Grant
and directed by Frank Capra
. The play was directed by Bretaigne Windust
, and opened on January 10, 1941. On September 25, 1943, the play moved to the Hudson Theater. It closed there on 17 June 1944 having played 1,444 performances. Of the twelve plays written by Kesselring, Arsenic and Old Lace was the most successful, and, according to the opening night review in the New York Times, the play was "so funny that none of us will ever forget it."
consisted of:
When Kesselring taught at Bethel College
in North Newton
, Kansas
, he lived in a boarding house
called the Goerz House, and many of the features of its living room are reflected in the Brewster sisters' living room
, where the action of the play is set. The Goerz House is now the home of the college president.
The 'murderous old lady' plot line may also have been inspired by actual events that occurred in a house in Windsor, Connecticut
, where a woman, Amy Archer-Gilligan
, took in boarders and allegedly poisoned them for their pensions. Kesselring originally conceived the play as a heavy drama, but it is widely believed that producers Howard Lindsay
and Russell Crouse (who were also well-known as play doctors) convinced Kesselring that it would be much more effective as a comedy.
In 1966, Sybil Thorndike
, Athene Seyler
and Richard Briers
appeared in the play in London. The play is still widely performed and has been translated into many languages, including a Russian film. A revival of the play ran from June 26, 1986 to January 3, 1987 at the 46th Street Theatre in New York. A recent revival was mounted in February of 2011 at the Dallas Theater Center
starring Betty Buckley
and Tovah Feldshuh
.
black comedy
revolving around Mortimer Brewster, a drama critic
who must deal with his crazy, homicidal family and local police in Brooklyn
, NY, as he debates whether to go through with his recent promise to marry the woman he loves. His family includes two spinster
aunts who have taken to murdering lonely old men by poisoning them with a glass of home-made elderberry wine laced with arsenic
, strychnine
, and "just a pinch" of cyanide
; a brother who believes he is Teddy Roosevelt
and digs lock
s for the Panama Canal
in the cellar of the Brewster home (which then serve as graves for the aunts' victims); and a murderous brother who has received plastic surgery
performed by an alcoholic
accomplice, Dr. Einstein (a character based on real-life gangland surgeon Joseph Moran
) to conceal his identity and now looks like horror-film actor Boris Karloff
(a self-referential
joke, as the part was originally played by Karloff). The film adaptation follows the same basic plot, with a few minor changes.
August Strindberg
was referred to by Mortimer when he compares the stories of his eccentric, and frequently murderous and disturbed, family to be like "if Strindberg wrote Hellzapoppin'
."
Playwright
A playwright, also called a dramatist, is a person who writes plays.The term is not a variant spelling of "playwrite", but something quite distinct: the word wright is an archaic English term for a craftsman or builder...
Joseph Kesselring
Joseph Kesselring
Joseph Otto Kesselring was an American writer and playwright known best for his play Arsenic and Old Lace, written in 1939 and originally entitled "Bodies in Our Cellar." He was born in New York City to Henry and Frances Kesselring. His father's parents were immigrants from Germany. His mother was...
, written in 1939. It has become best known through the film adaptation
Arsenic and Old Lace (film)
Arsenic and Old Lace is a 1944 film directed by Frank Capra based on Joseph Kesselring's play of the same name. The script adaptation was by twins Julius J. Epstein and Philip G. Epstein. Capra actually filmed the movie in 1941, but it was not released until 1944, after the original stage version...
starring Cary Grant
Cary Grant
Archibald Alexander Leach , better known by his stage name Cary Grant, was an English actor who later took U.S. citizenship...
and directed by Frank Capra
Frank Capra
Frank Russell Capra was a Sicilian-born American film director. He emigrated to the U.S. when he was six, and eventually became a creative force behind major award-winning films during the 1930s and 1940s...
. The play was directed by Bretaigne Windust
Bretaigne Windust
Bretaigne Windust was a French-born theatre, film, and television director.-Early life:He was born Ernest Bretaigne Windust in Paris, France, the son of English violin virtuoso Ernest Joseph Windust and singer Elizabeth Amory Day from New York City...
, and opened on January 10, 1941. On September 25, 1943, the play moved to the Hudson Theater. It closed there on 17 June 1944 having played 1,444 performances. Of the twelve plays written by Kesselring, Arsenic and Old Lace was the most successful, and, according to the opening night review in the New York Times, the play was "so funny that none of us will ever forget it."
Cast
The opening night castCast member
A cast member is:* An actor who performs in a theatrical production, motion picture, or television program. The actors who perform in the show are collectively referred to as the cast....
consisted of:
- Jean AdairJean AdairJean Adair was a Canadian actress.Born as Violet McNaughton, she worked primarily on stage but also made several film appearances late in her career, most notably as one of Cary Grant's dotty old aunts in Arsenic and Old Lace, a role she originated on Broadway...
(Martha Brewster) - John AlexanderJohn Alexander (actor)John Alexander was an American stage and film actor.Perhaps his most memorable performance was as Teddy Brewster, a lunatic who thinks he is Theodore Roosevelt, in the 1944 classic film Arsenic and Old Lace opposite Cary Grant. He had previously portrayed that role in the 1941 Broadway play of the...
(Teddy Brewster) - Wyrley Birch (The Rev. Dr. Harper)
- Helen Brooks (Elaine Harper)
- Bruce Gordon (Officer Klein)
- Henry Herbert (Mr. Gibbs)
- Josephine HullJosephine HullJosephine Hull was an Academy Award winning American actress who also was a director of plays. She had a successful 50-year career on stage while taking some of her better known roles to film...
(Abby Brewster) - Allyn JoslynAllyn JoslynAllyn Joslyn was an American stage, film and television actor.-Biography:Allyn Joslyn was born in Milford, Pennsylvania, the son of a mining engineer...
(Mortimer Brewster) - Boris KarloffBoris KarloffWilliam Henry Pratt , better known by his stage name Boris Karloff, was an English actor.Karloff is best remembered for his roles in horror films and his portrayal of Frankenstein's monster in Frankenstein , Bride of Frankenstein , and Son of Frankenstein...
(Jonathan Brewster) - William Parks (Mr. Witherspoon)
- John Quigg (Officer Brophy)
- Anthony Ross (Officer O'Hara)
- Edgar Stehli (Dr. Einstein)
- Victor SutherlandVictor SutherlandVictor Sutherland was an American actor.-Biography:Born in Paducah, Kentucky, Sutherland worked in motion pictures from the 1910s through the 1950s, when he also acted on television. He made several appearances in the Perry Mason Show...
(Lieutenant Rooney)
When Kesselring taught at Bethel College
Bethel College (Kansas)
Bethel College is a private college affiliated with Mennonite Church USA. The college is located on the edge of the Flint Hills and the vast wheat fields of south central Kansas in the town of North Newton...
in North Newton
North Newton, Kansas
North Newton is a city in Harvey County, Kansas, United States. As of the 2010 census, the city population was 1,759. The city of Newton is located next to the city, but it not part of North Newton. North Newton is home of Bethel College, which has approximately 500 students.-Geography:North...
, Kansas
Kansas
Kansas is a US state located in the Midwestern United States. It is named after the Kansas River which flows through it, which in turn was named after the Kansa Native American tribe, which inhabited the area. The tribe's name is often said to mean "people of the wind" or "people of the south...
, he lived in a boarding house
Boarding house
A boarding house, is a house in which lodgers rent one or more rooms for one or more nights, and sometimes for extended periods of weeks, months and years. The common parts of the house are maintained, and some services, such as laundry and cleaning, may be supplied. They normally provide "bed...
called the Goerz House, and many of the features of its living room are reflected in the Brewster sisters' living room
Living room
A living room, also known as sitting room, lounge room or lounge , is a room for entertaining adult guests, reading, or other activities...
, where the action of the play is set. The Goerz House is now the home of the college president.
The 'murderous old lady' plot line may also have been inspired by actual events that occurred in a house in Windsor, Connecticut
Windsor, Connecticut
Windsor is a town in Hartford County, Connecticut, United States, and was the first English settlement in the state. It lies on the northern border of Connecticut's capital, Hartford. The population was estimated at 28,778 in 2005....
, where a woman, Amy Archer-Gilligan
Amy Archer-Gilligan
"Sister" Amy Duggan Archer-Gilligan was a Windsor, Connecticut nursing home proprietor and serial killer who systematically murdered at least five people by poison; one was her second husband, Michael Gilligan, and the rest were residents of her nursing home...
, took in boarders and allegedly poisoned them for their pensions. Kesselring originally conceived the play as a heavy drama, but it is widely believed that producers Howard Lindsay
Howard Lindsay
Howard Lindsay was an American theatrical producer, playwright, librettist, director and actor. He is best known for his writing work as part of the collaboration of Lindsay and Crouse, and for his performance, with his wife Dorothy Stickney, in the long-running play Life with...
and Russell Crouse (who were also well-known as play doctors) convinced Kesselring that it would be much more effective as a comedy.
In 1966, Sybil Thorndike
Sybil Thorndike
Dame Agnes Sybil Thorndike CH DBE was a British actress.-Early life:She was born in Gainsborough, Lincolnshire to Arthur Thorndike and Agnes Macdonald. Her father was a Canon of Rochester Cathedral...
, Athene Seyler
Athene Seyler
Athene Seyler, CBE was an English actress.Although better known as a stage actress, she first appeared on the stage in 1909 and made her film debut in 1921, and became known for playing slightly dotty old ladies....
and Richard Briers
Richard Briers
Richard David Briers, CBE is an English actor whose career has encompassed theatre, television, film and radio.He first came to prominence as George Starling in Marriage Lines in the 1960s, but it was in the following decade when he played Tom Good in the BBC sitcom The Good Life that he became a...
appeared in the play in London. The play is still widely performed and has been translated into many languages, including a Russian film. A revival of the play ran from June 26, 1986 to January 3, 1987 at the 46th Street Theatre in New York. A recent revival was mounted in February of 2011 at the Dallas Theater Center
Dallas Theater Center
The Dallas Theater Center is a major regional theater in Dallas, Texas . It produces classic, contemporary and new plays. The theater was based in the Kalita Humphreys Theater, a building designed by famous American architect Frank Lloyd Wright, from 1959 to 2009...
starring Betty Buckley
Betty Buckley
Betty Lynn Buckley is an American theater, film and television actress and singer. She is a Tony Award winner and Grammy Award nominee.-Early life:...
and Tovah Feldshuh
Tovah Feldshuh
Tovah Feldshuh is an American actress, singer and playwright.-Early life:Terri Sue Feldshuh was born to a Jewish family in New York City, the daughter of Lillian and Sidney Feldshuh, who was a lawyer. She was raised in Scarsdale, New York, an affluent community in Westchester County and graduated...
.
Plot
The play is a farcicalFarce
In theatre, a farce is a comedy which aims at entertaining the audience by means of unlikely, extravagant, and improbable situations, disguise and mistaken identity, verbal humour of varying degrees of sophistication, which may include word play, and a fast-paced plot whose speed usually increases,...
black comedy
Black comedy
A black comedy, or dark comedy, is a comic work that employs black humor or gallows humor. The definition of black humor is problematic; it has been argued that it corresponds to the earlier concept of gallows humor; and that, as humor has been defined since Freud as a comedic act that anesthetizes...
revolving around Mortimer Brewster, a drama critic
Critic
A critic is anyone who expresses a value judgement. Informally, criticism is a common aspect of all human expression and need not necessarily imply skilled or accurate expressions of judgement. Critical judgements, good or bad, may be positive , negative , or balanced...
who must deal with his crazy, homicidal family and local police in Brooklyn
Brooklyn
Brooklyn is the most populous of New York City's five boroughs, with nearly 2.6 million residents, and the second-largest in area. Since 1896, Brooklyn has had the same boundaries as Kings County, which is now the most populous county in New York State and the second-most densely populated...
, NY, as he debates whether to go through with his recent promise to marry the woman he loves. His family includes two spinster
Spinster
A spinster, or old maid, is an older, childless woman who has never been married.For a woman to be identified as a spinster, age is critical...
aunts who have taken to murdering lonely old men by poisoning them with a glass of home-made elderberry wine laced with arsenic
Arsenic
Arsenic is a chemical element with the symbol As, atomic number 33 and relative atomic mass 74.92. Arsenic occurs in many minerals, usually in conjunction with sulfur and metals, and also as a pure elemental crystal. It was first documented by Albertus Magnus in 1250.Arsenic is a metalloid...
, strychnine
Strychnine
Strychnine is a highly toxic , colorless crystalline alkaloid used as a pesticide, particularly for killing small vertebrates such as birds and rodents. Strychnine causes muscular convulsions and eventually death through asphyxia or sheer exhaustion...
, and "just a pinch" of cyanide
Cyanide
A cyanide is a chemical compound that contains the cyano group, -C≡N, which consists of a carbon atom triple-bonded to a nitrogen atom. Cyanides most commonly refer to salts of the anion CN−. Most cyanides are highly toxic....
; a brother who believes he is Teddy Roosevelt
Theodore Roosevelt
Theodore "Teddy" Roosevelt was the 26th President of the United States . He is noted for his exuberant personality, range of interests and achievements, and his leadership of the Progressive Movement, as well as his "cowboy" persona and robust masculinity...
and digs lock
Lock (water transport)
A lock is a device for raising and lowering boats between stretches of water of different levels on river and canal waterways. The distinguishing feature of a lock is a fixed chamber in which the water level can be varied; whereas in a caisson lock, a boat lift, or on a canal inclined plane, it is...
s for the Panama Canal
Panama Canal
The Panama Canal is a ship canal in Panama that joins the Atlantic Ocean and the Pacific Ocean and is a key conduit for international maritime trade. Built from 1904 to 1914, the canal has seen annual traffic rise from about 1,000 ships early on to 14,702 vessels measuring a total of 309.6...
in the cellar of the Brewster home (which then serve as graves for the aunts' victims); and a murderous brother who has received plastic surgery
Plastic surgery
Plastic surgery is a medical specialty concerned with the correction or restoration of form and function. Though cosmetic or aesthetic surgery is the best-known kind of plastic surgery, most plastic surgery is not cosmetic: plastic surgery includes many types of reconstructive surgery, hand...
performed by an alcoholic
Alcoholism
Alcoholism is a broad term for problems with alcohol, and is generally used to mean compulsive and uncontrolled consumption of alcoholic beverages, usually to the detriment of the drinker's health, personal relationships, and social standing...
accomplice, Dr. Einstein (a character based on real-life gangland surgeon Joseph Moran
Joseph P. Moran
Joseph P. Moran was a doctor known for catering to the Depression-era criminal underworld in the early 20th century. He was also a peripheral member of the Barker-Karpis gang, and was possibly the last physician to see the mortally wounded John Hamilton, a member of the John Dillinger gang, whom...
) to conceal his identity and now looks like horror-film actor Boris Karloff
Boris Karloff
William Henry Pratt , better known by his stage name Boris Karloff, was an English actor.Karloff is best remembered for his roles in horror films and his portrayal of Frankenstein's monster in Frankenstein , Bride of Frankenstein , and Son of Frankenstein...
(a self-referential
Self-reference
Self-reference occurs in natural or formal languages when a sentence or formula refers to itself. The reference may be expressed either directly—through some intermediate sentence or formula—or by means of some encoding...
joke, as the part was originally played by Karloff). The film adaptation follows the same basic plot, with a few minor changes.
August Strindberg
August Strindberg
Johan August Strindberg was a Swedish playwright, novelist, poet, essayist and painter. A prolific writer who often drew directly on his personal experience, Strindberg's career spanned four decades, during which time he wrote over 60 plays and more than 30 works of fiction, autobiography,...
was referred to by Mortimer when he compares the stories of his eccentric, and frequently murderous and disturbed, family to be like "if Strindberg wrote Hellzapoppin'
Hellzapoppin'
Hellzapoppin is a musical revue written by the comedy team of Olsen and Johnson, consisting of John "Ole" Olsen and Harold "Chic" Johnson, with music and lyrics by Sammy Fain and Charles Tobias...
."