Pure poison

‘Arsenic and Old Lace’ proves comedy doesn’t always improve with age

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There is a world of difference between a phoenix risingout of the ashes and a squawky old buzzard of a script from 1939 beingdug up and delivered dead on arrival.

 “Arsenicand Old Lace”, written 72 years ago, received a New York Times reviewat the time that said, “It was so funny that none of us will everforget it.”

That was then: this is now.

This week’s resurrected rendition of theAmerican chestnut, performed by the Lansing Civic Players, is sounfunny you’ll want to forget it immediately. 

Playwright Joseph Kesserling putstheater critic Mortimer Brewster at the heart of “Arsenic,” an islandof rationality in an ocean of insanity. Adam Bright plays him with aconsistently effective calmness, while most of the other characters areexaggerated nutcases. 

Eight senior citizens seated in thesecond row snickered, snorted and sometimes snored as several actorsstumbled, stuttered and sputtered their way through lines not yetperfectly learned.

The rest of us struggled to stay awake. 

Carol Ray as the younger spinstersister, Abby Brewster, perfects the art of talking in a monotonethroughout her performance, leaving it up entirely to Jane Zussman, asher creepy and creaky counterpart, Martha, to be hammier than thou,shamelessly prancing her way across the stage with mincing littlemovements reminiscent of an aged Bette Midler. Tee hee. 

The notion that these two sisters arejust innocently insane, poisoning other elderly guests in their home tohelp them attain their heavenly rewards is a stretch.

When one adds into the mix that thesisters have an equally insane nephew who imagines he is TeddyRoosevelt, the plot becomes perilously thin.

Tom Dewitt is Teddy, and his multipledeliveries of the single line — “Charge!” — to signify the advance upan imaginary San Juan Hill, must have been specifically designed towake up a flagging audience: funny once, not five times.

Add a subplot about yet anotherserial-killer nephew who, thanks to plastic surgery, looks like BorisKarloff, and one begins to think that maybe this play is meant to be ametaphor, i.e. the theater critic nephew’s worst performance nightmarebeing projected out to the audience. 

Director Brittney Benjamin has her handsfull (and tied behind her back) with this production. Kenneth Branaughcouldn’t have brought it back from the dead.

Few of us are nostalgic for endlessly revisiting the outdated theater forms of our grandparents’ generation.

The world has moved on.

 If Lansing Civic Players wants to reincarnate, maybe it might consider something a bit newer — say, from this century.

‘Arsenic and Old Lace’

Lansing Civic Players

Through Oct. 23

Hannah Community Center,  819 Abbot Road,

East Lansing

8 p.m. Thursdays, Fridays and Saturdays, and 2 p.m. Sunday, Oct. 23 

$14 adults; $8 students and seniors

(888) 419-5458

www.lansingcivicplayers.org

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