”You know, some guys just can’t hold their arsenic.” This isn’t a review of Chicago, but the “Cell Block Tango” lyric comes to mind in the case of sisters Abby and Martha Brewster (Dixie Arthur and Valerie Pallai, respectfully)—a murderous duo responsible for at least 12 deaths in Arsenic and Old Lace.
Orcutt Community Theater’s (OCT) production of the classic Joseph Kesselring dark comedy runs through March 1 at Klein Dance Arts Studio and also features Paul Chavez as Mortimer Brewster, nephew to the aforementioned pair. Set in 1940s Brooklyn, the play follows Mortimer’s sudden realization of his two aunts’ special hobby, after finding a dead body in a chest in their living room.
He confronts them immediately, but Abby and Martha respond nonchalantly, without shame or any sign of remorse. They even fill him in on the details: They use elderberry wine laced with arsenic, strychnine, and “just a pinch” of cyanide to poison lonely old men, all without any family or friends to notice their disappearances.
And to make matters even more macabre, the sisters enlist help from Mortimer’s mentally ill brother, Teddy Brewster (Jeffrey Staso), who buries their victims. But Teddy is an innocent pawn, under the delusion that he himself is President Theodore Roosevelt (a claim supported by his mustache, sword, and cavalry attire) and is digging locks for the Panama Canal. He’s also under the impression that each victim died of yellow fever.
For Mortimer, the revelation of his aunts’ atrocities couldn’t have come at a more inconvenient time, as he’s recently become engaged to his girlfriend, Elaine Harper (Amaris Taylor), and is about to receive an unannounced visit from Jonathan Brewster (Craig Scott), his detestable older brother. More appalling in a “traditional sense” than his two aunts, Jonathan is a common gangland murderer, and has recently escaped from prison by the time we meet him.
In order to evade the law and conceal his identity, Jonathan gets haphazard plastic surgery from his accomplice, “Dr. Einstein” (Matthew Babcock), which leaves his face completely unrecognizable. Upon arrival at the Brewster home, each family member Jonathan reacquaints himself with ends up comparing his new look to Frankenstein’s monster (a self-referential joke in the show’s original Broadway debut, as the role was first played by Boris Karloff).
Rounding out the mayhem are several other quirky members of the cast, including Clare Terrill as an adorably clueless police lieutenant (she steals the show on more than one occasion), Alan Sutterfield as the superintendent of a loony bin, and Heather Babcock as O’Hara, a police officer who dreams of becoming a playwright someday. She pitches a play she’s writing to Mortimer at one point, who I forgot to mention works for a newspaper as a theater critic (relatable).
Mortimer is described as having gained a harsh reputation for his cynical, often scathing reviews, but I doubt even he could come up with much to complain about in the case of his own story at the heart of this OCT production—it’s simply to die for.
Arts Editor Caleb Wiseblood was actually quite convinced that Teddy really was Theodore Roosevelt. Reach him at cwiseblood@santamariasun.com.
This article appears in Feb 27 – Mar 5, 2020.
