WONDER BREAD AND
MARGERINE
ARSENIC AND OLD LACE
Directed by Davis Robinson; written by Joseph
Kesselring; set designed by Daniel Bilodeau; costumes designed by Patti
Campbell
With: Maureen Tannian Butler, Dan Olmstead,
David Greenham, Ian Austin, J. Paul Guimont, Janis Stevens, Anna Soloway,
Mike Anthony, Frank Omar, Bill Van Horn, Mark S. Cartier, Matthew
Archembault, Frank Omar, and Anthony Arnista
At the Theater at Monmouth in Monmouth, Maine
Performed in repertory from July 11, 2008 to
August 23, 2008
Reviewed by Laurie Meunier Graves
The setting is a cozy living room in Brooklyn,
New York, in the 1940s, where the twee elderly sisters, Abby and Martha
Brewster, live with their dotty nephew “Teddy” Brewster, who thinks he is
Teddy Roosevelt. The play opens with two policemen reflecting on how kind,
generous, and unselfish the Brewster sisters are, on how they spend their
days administering to the needs of others. Before the audience can say,
“Bully,” Teddy is blowing his horn and charging San Juan Hill, aka the
stairs to the second floor. And sparkling Abby Brewster reveals a little
secret: There’s a dead body hidden in the window seat, and there are eleven
more buried in the basement. Chuckling with delight, Abby and Martha plan
the newest burial and congratulate themselves on how they and their poisoned
elderberry wine have helped yet another lonely old man without a family.
These “angels of mercy” have relieved the suffering of someone who is all
alone and therefore has nothing to live for. (Are the victims themselves
grateful for this intervention? Don’t ask questions.)
Into this merry household come a second
nephew, Mortimer Brewster, a cynical theater critic, and his lovely fiancée
Elaine Harper, the girl next door to the aunts. Except for being a critic,
Mortimer is relatively sane, and when he finds the dead body in the window
seat, he is appropriately horrified, knowing he must hide the body from
Elaine and somehow make things right for his dear aunts. But his plans are
foiled by his brother Jonathan, who, hard as it might be to believe, is even
worse than the aunts. A true psychopath, Jonathan has come avisiting with a
dead body tow as well as a chum, a “Dr. Einstein,” whose dubious skills with
the knife are not exactly ethical. Will Mortimer succeed in protecting his
aunts? Will the murderous Jonathan do away with Mortimer? Will Teddy ever
finish digging the Panama Canal in the basement? Do chestnuts roast on an
open fire?
Clearly, the Theater at Monmouth had a lot of
fun with this play. Maureen Tannian Butler (Abby Brewster) and Janis Stevens
(Martha Brewster) twinkled and tottered for all they were worth. David
Greenham’s Teddy was so loud and bluff that I expect his voice carried all
the way to the parking lot. Mike Anthony (Mortimer Brewster) played the
straight man with both humor and aplomb, and Bill Van Horn (Jonathan
Brewster) and Mark S. Cartier (Dr. Einstein) were a terrific duo. The rest
of the cast was equally good, and going by the laughter, I would guess that
the audience seemed to have as much fun as the players. And wonder of
wonders, this cynical critic even laughed a few times herself.
However, in being true to the curmudgeon that
resides deep in the heart of all critics, I did entertain just a few little
doubts—call them questions, if you will—about whether Arsenic and Old
Lace was a play that professional theater should perform. It could be
the fact that this same play was the one chosen by my daughter’s high school
senior class, and, at the time, I thought Arsenic and Old Lace was
exactly the right production for their level of acting. Not to put too fine
a point on it, but with its broad, stereotypical characters, its simple
dialogue, and its silly plot, this is not exactly the most demanding play
ever written. It could also be that I’ve been coming to the Theater at
Monmouth for many, many years, when Chekhov and Molière kept company with
Shakespeare and seemed like a much better fit. To my way of thinking,
pairing Arsenic and Old Lace with Shakespeare is a little bit
like serving instant pudding with Cool Whip for dessert after a gourmet
meal.
To continue with the food analogy, I realize
that all theaters must have bread-and-butter plays to keep things going. But
Arsenic and Old Lace is several steps below bread and butter. To this
jaded reviewer, it feels more like Wonder Bread and margarine, and it seems
to me that the Theater at Monmouth should do better than this.
