Arsenic and Old Lace

This classic play is a farcical 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 a murderous brother who has received plastic surgery performed by an alcoholic accomplice, Dr. Einstein. Because of this streak of insanity in his family, Mortimer believes he musn't marry and carry on the family line, until a late reprieve saves the day. A lively comic masterpiece.

Written by Joseph Kesselring
Directed by Kevin Poole