I bear in mind seeing half (however not all) of the 1944 film traditional “Arsenic & Outdated Lace,” starring Cary Grant and directed by the nice Frank Capra, someday throughout my teenage years as I flipped by means of my 13 channels earlier than the times of cable TV. From what I may bear in mind, I assumed the film, tailored from the 1939 play by Joseph Kesselring, was a “cute, however darkish” comedy.
So, seeing the Wesley Chapel Theater Group (WCTG)’s efficiency of “Arsenic & Outdated Lace” on the Zephyrhills Lions Membership on Apr. 26 was mainly like seeing it for the primary time. Directed by Colleen DeFelice (who instructed the viewers she had performed one of many lead roles, Aunt Abby, 13 years earlier than), WCTG’s “Arsenic” was a enjoyable, if understandably dated, macabre comedy about some murderous — and typically hilarious — members of the family.
The play starred Alex Peña within the Grant position of Mortimer Brewster, who loves however doesn’t appear to wish to marry his cheeky, considerably pushy girlfriend Elaine (carried out to perfection by Aliza Rivera). Mortimer is a theatre critic who lives in Brooklyn along with his seemingly candy spinster aunts Abby (performed by Danielle Warren) and Martha (Jennifer Peña), whereas Elaine lives along with her father, Rev. Dr. Harper, throughout a graveyard from Mortimer, his aunts and his brother Teddy (Chad Allen). Teddy believes he’s really former U.S. President Teddy Roosevelt — and everybody who visits the Brewster home performs alongside as a result of Teddy is a bit of craz…let’s simply say “on the market.”
“Arsenic” takes its first sinister flip when Mortimer finds a useless physique in the home and Abby and Martha admit that there are eleven extra useless our bodies buried within the basement — all lonely, older males who drank their home made elderberry wine laced with arsenic, strychnine “and only a pinch of cyanide.” Teddy has been digging the boys’s graves within the basement, considering they’re locks for his Panama Canal, and believing that the boys died of yellow fever.
However, it seems that Mortimer’s lengthy misplaced brother Jonathan (David Sparano), “who seems like Boris Karloff” (and was really portrayed by Karloff throughout the stage play’s five-year run on Broadway, and by Raymond Massey within the film), is also a assassin. Jonathan has traveled the world with Dr. Einstein (James Hernandez), a plastic surgeon who modifications Jonathan’s face after each homicide. The 2 have introduced alongside a useless physique of their very own to get rid of on the Brewster house and Jonathan plans to homicide Mortimer (and possibly his aunts and Teddy, too) to switch his brother within the home when he additionally discovers his aunts’ most up-to-date sufferer, considering Mortimer was the killer.
However, Officer O’Hara (Arturo Delacruz) exhibits as much as pitch his personal play concept to Mortimer, which throws a monkey wrench into Jonathan’s plans. Jonathan finally ends up being arrested, Mortimer indicators the papers committing Teddy to a sanitarium and Abby and Martha agree to affix Teddy (satisfied by Mortimer to maintain them from being prosecuted for the murders). Mortimer and Elaine can lastly stay fortunately ever after, when Abby and Martha inform Mortimer that he was really adopted and never associated by blood to his murderous household. Nonetheless with me?
WCTG’s “Arsenic & Outdated Lace” was funnier than the plot really sounds and was well-received, with some out-loud laughs from the sold-out crowds of possibly 100 individuals at every efficiency.
The subsequent WCTG performances shall be “A Evening of One Acts,” additionally on the Zephyrhills Lions Membership, the weekend of July 12-13.
WCTG, which doesn’t have a everlasting house of its personal, would love to search out one in Wesley Chapel and will certainly want to lift extra money to have the ability to afford one.
To make a donation, volunteer to affix the group or for tickets to “A Evening of One Acts,” go to WesleyChapelTheaterGroup.org. — GN
