Arsenic and Old Lace (play)

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Arsenic and Old Lace is a black comedy play by American playwright Joseph Kesselring, written in 1939. It has become best known through the film version -- filmed in 1941 but not released until 1944 -- which starred Cary Grant and was directed by Frank Capra.

Of the 12 plays written by Kesselring, Arsenic and Old Lace is the only one to be successful. The play is a farce revolving around Mortimer Brewster, a theatre-hating drama critic who must deal with his crazy family and local police in Brooklyn New York, as he debates whether to go through with marrying the woman he loves. His family include 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's Teddy Roosevelt and who digs locks for the Panama Canal in the cellar of the Brewster home; and a criminally murderous brother who - due to botched plastic surgery to evade the authorities - now looks like horror-film actor Boris Karloff (a self-referential joke, as the part was originally played by Karloff). The basic plot matches that of the movie adaptation, with a few minor changes in background.

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 first Broadway production of the play was at the Fulton Theater in New York City. It was produced by Howard Lindsay and Russell Crouse. The play was directed by Bretaigne Windust, and opened on 10 January 1941. On 25 September 1943, the play transferred to the Hudson Theater. It closed there on 17 June 1944 having played 1,444 performances.