2023, Media, Movies, Theatre

Arsenic & Old Lace

41 Comments

On Friday night my BFF, Sara, and I went to see Arsenic & Old Lace at Theatre in the Round over on the West Bank.  This was Sara’s birthday present from me….we decided a few years back to give each other experiences instead of things for our birthdays.  She chose Arsenic from a list of plays showing this fall.  I was looking forward to it; I’ve seen the 1944 A&O starring Cary Grant and Boris Karloff several times and was interested in how the play would measure up.

I haven’t been to Theatre in the Round for many years.  Actually except for theatre that has been gifted to me, I’ve hardly been to any theatre in years. (Single parenthood kind of whoops the-evening-entertainment-that-costs-money craving out of you.)  When I first moved to the Twin Cities, I did volunteer ushering there for a couple of plays but full-time work while my wasband was searching for a job wore me down and I needed my nights back.

The production on Friday was quite nice.  The entire play takes places in the living/dining room of the Brewster sisters; no-nonsense set and props (like the sisters) without too much bric-a-brac to pull your attention away.  Lighting was pretty straight forward (nothing fancy like I see in Ben’s photos) and the sound was very good.  If the actors were mic’ed, I couldn’t tell; we were in the third row and didn’t have any trouble hearing all the dialogue.

Casting was superb!  Not that easy when one of the actors needs to resemble Teddy Roosevelt and another absolutely has to look like Boris Karloff (there are repeated mentions of this in the script).  I was a little worried that that these two would be weak links, hired for their looks, but they were both great.  Jonathan (the Boris look-alike) was particularly good.  Both Brewster sisters were excellent; Abby had a great way of waving her arms to punctuate her lines that was very effectives.  And a shout-out to the young woman who played Officer Brophy; she really sparkled in her role.

I was easily able to put aside my Cary Grant memories and enjoy the play on its merits.  It was very funny and a couple of times I laughed enough to cry.  The woman behind me snorted a few times! 

If you’re in the Twin Cities and up for a great night of theatre and comedy, I highly recommend it.  I think it’s running for a few more weeks.

Tell me about a favorite theatre experience you’ve had!

41 thoughts on “Arsenic & Old Lace”

  1. Hard to single out a theatrical performance. In the past we have had season tickets to the Guthrie and to the Jungle Theatre. Over the years we have seen shows all around town. Some were great, a couple of them we snuck out at intermission.

    My favorite theatre experiences were when we worked on shows. Robin volunteered in the costume department for a while and I joined her there for a show or two.

    When my younger daughter was in high school the theater director was dynamic and enthusiastic and produced a series of musicals. He and his wife, who was an actor at the Chanhassen Dinner Theater put out a call for parents willing and able to help with costuming. Robin and I were the only ones to step up.
    Over the next few years we helped costume The Pirates of Penzance, Oklahoma, Fiddler on the Roof, Guys and Dolls, HMS Pinafore, Damn Yankees and Joseph and His Many-Colored Dreamcoat. Because these were high school productions the director cast as many students as he could fit on the stage, requiring a great many costumes. Robin and I were both working during the day and sewing late into the night. Nevertheless, seeing our costumes on stage and in action was great fun.

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  2. I loved so much theater beginning with the first time I was in a play in Leadville, Colorado but also the first Shakespeare play I saw in Switzerland (in English, of course). When I moved back to Minnesota, loved plays at the University of Minnesota Duluth, plays at the Guthrie and plays I acted in Moose Lake and Barnum. In the mid 1990s I was invited to direct one act plays in Barnum. Hard work in evenings after getting home from my job in Duluth, but I loved it. Favorite plays I directed included ones by James Thurber, Anton Chekhov, three times a play by Lady Gregory and a couple melodramas. Oh, and trips to New York always included going to the theater: Barbara Streisand in “Funny Girl,” Anthony Perkins in “Equus”, a series of comedies  I can’t remember the names of but I remember laughing so much at one of them that was so packed and I had spent the afternoon eating a garlic and snail lunch that when I laughed so much an elderly lady sitting next to me covered her nose and stared at me then between acts moved to a chair on the far edge of the seats. I think Maggie Smith was in one of them. I wish I could remember the titles. Now it’s been years but love the memories! Cynthia “Life is a shifting carpet…learn to dance.”

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  3. Rise and Shine Baboons,

    Anyone view the world’s natural theatre last night, the Aurora Boralis?

    Arsenic and Old Lace is a classic. My sister was in this play in High School, and had her hair in a high Bee Hive, sprayed green, for her role. The back-combing that the hairstyle required in combination with green powder they put on it, ruined her hair, leaving it very broken. I made it worse by trying to treat it with vaseline because we had no baby oil or mayonnaise in the house to try to repair the damage. She had to have her waist length hair all cut off. The memory of her in her role, and my really dumb move trying to repair the damage is a guilt-ridden theater memory.

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  4. I’ve only seen Arsenic once, way back in the early 80s. It was mounted by students at an all-girls language academy (hs + jr.college) in Kaohsiung, Taiwan. The production was about what one could expect from people cross dressing and operating in what was, to them, a foreign language. One interesting aspect was that the school, run by Ursuline Roman Catholic Sisters, required a few words to be spoken, either before or after the play (I can’t remember which) asking that the audience consider whether the actions of the characters could be considered properly moral or not.

    The play was on stage at the city’s cultural center, a venue for many events simultaneously. On the grounds outside a set of risers had been constructed for something else. They were made of plastic cases that usually held beer bottles. So each case was labeled, “Taiwan Beer”. I recall joking with friends who worked at the school that after the play, the nuns were throwing a kegger.

    Fun play, good memory. Thanks.

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  5. Waaay back, Moorhead State put on H.M.S. Pinafore. That began my appreciation of Gilbert&Sullivan. Who knew opera could be sung in English?!
    What really knocked my socks off was the finale, “Oh joy, oh rapture unforseen.” That was a tag line my Dad used frequently as sarcasm. I never knew from where he got that. So from then on, I added, “Well, you are the very model of a modern major general” from Pirates of Penzance. Later, MSU put on Pirates and he and I attended together. It knocked his socks off! The best laughs we ever shared. I miss him.

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    1. My favorite line from Pirates is, “ Am I to understand that, to save his contemptible life, he dared to practise on our credulous simplicity?” I see a lot of credulous simplicity…

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      1. Nice! These reflections put me on to the 1983 movie on YouTube. I cannot explain how the movie got past me. Just started and already good laughs with Angela Lansbury.

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      3. Just now finished the movie version of Pirates. Absolutely delightful.
        I’ve shared the proceedings with my two younger sisters. It has awakened their memories. I hope they will become Baboons.

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  6. I’m not a huge theater-goer, but when we lived in Chicagoland, my wife and I tried to experience as much entertainment as Chicago had to offer and that we could afford.

    Three standout shows were “West Side Story,” “Guys and Dolls,” and “Death of a Salesman.” WSS singing and dancing was incredible, much better than the movie voices (Marni Nixon nothwithstanding). My wife was so into the show that she wept openly at the end when Maria was holding Tony in her arms after Chino had shot him.

    G&D starred Peter Gallagher as Sky Masterson (the Sinatra role in the movie, if I recall.) He was outstanding. I’d only seen the movie and thought it was good, but the arrangements of most of the tunes, plus the choreography, brought this stage production to the next level. It’s now one of my favorite musicals.

    Brian Dennehy stole the show as Willie Loman in DOAS. That’s when my wife “fell in love” with him. I think we’d only seen him in “Cocoon” and “Silverado” before that. The man could flat out act and oozed charisma.

    Chris in Owatonna

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  7. I loved directing theater when I had a cooperative cast. Being on time, learning lines, sharing their own thought-out ideas, and listening mattered to me more than real talent. But the 2-4 in a cast who would not do those things got me to quit.
    I think my best memories are directing melodramas in the park in the summertime on Friday nights in July. But then the band members, not the directors, objected we were using their band shell and four local business owners complained to the city council about the plays. The council did not do anything but I got tired of silly battles.
    Loved seeing Skin of Our Teeth at the Guthrie 50 years ago. I am the last living Thornton Wilder fan.
    Clyde

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  8. I had small parts in high school plays: Godspell and the Human Comedy. I had a lot of fun and I should have focused more on it. The singing and dancing in Godspell was a blast.

    I’m not a huge theater-goer but when I love it when I do go. Most recently I saw Glensheen at the History Theater in St. Paul. I thought it was great. The set was simple and versatile but looked enough like Glensheen to be convincing. It’s nice to have the historical background.

    I saw the Jesse James play there too. I disagreed with some parts of the storyline but it was still enjoyable. They left out the part of the local townspeople yelling and the men of Northfield gathering to defend the bank. For someone who lives in Northfield, that was almost intolerable. I almost stood up and shouted, “Get your guns, boys, they’re robbing the bank!”

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  9. Saw Wicked in London with Daughter. Saw LIon King in London with Son and DIL. Both wonderful.

    Son was a dancing cowboy in high school production of Oklahoma, as well as an Army Private in Tea House of the August Moon. Daughter was a singing waitress in All Shook Up.

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  10. Theater highlight memories include:
    – The Nutcracker in San Francisco, when my visiting father fell asleep
    – seeing Chicago and Pippin on Broadway, circa 1975
    – several at the Guthrie, but I’m having a hard time with the titles… maybe later
    – as a member of one of the choirs, I (along with VS and Lisa) got to be in the Guthrie production of The Events in 2015 – the three of us wrote about it (at some length) here: https://trailbaboon.com/2015/11/05/singin-at-the-guthrie/

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  13. Just now finished the movie version of Pirates. Absolutely delightful.
    I’ve shared the proceedings with my two younger sisters. It has awakened their memories. I hope they will become Baboons.

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  14. I have been a History Theatre season ticket holder for a bunch of years and have seen many wonderful productions there. Back in the late 70s to mid 80s, a friend and I saw quite a few Guthrie productions, including many versions of “A Christmas Carol”. We loved anything with Barbara Bryne or Peter Michael Goetz. Then there were a bunch of years when I didn’t see anything there…..started to attend some shows again about 15 years ago. When my nieces were young, we had season tickets to The Children’s Theater – again, many wonderful productions but nothing topped “Cinderella” with Gerald Drake as the stepmother. Over the years I have also seen quite a few Broadway musicals at various venues – Broadway, the Ordway, the Orpheum, Pantages, Chicago, etc. Taking my young nieces to see “The Lion King” was magical – they were enthralled with the costumes. “Wicked”, “The Book of Mormon”, “Les Miz”, “Phantom of the Opera”, “Beauty and the Beast”, “Hamilton”, “Dear Evan Hansen”, “Into the Woods” – how to pick a favorite? I was only on stage once for a high school production of “The Miracle Worker” – one of the blind students and no lines to speak. That was enough for me. I was much happier in the pit band for our musicals.

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  15. Almost forgot – once in London I had a front row seat for “The Pirates of Penzance” with Peter Noone (Herman’s Hermits) in the lead. That was pretty special.

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  16. K-Two has listed enough to remind me of more – we saw Cats, the traveling production, when it came to the State Theater (I think). And while not technically theater, I saw Riverdance twice, maybe at the Orpheum?

    We got to see some amazing high school productions – I remember a Robbinsdale/Armstrong H.S. production of Guys and Dolls that really wowed us. And even a little community theater version of In the Woods outdoors at a park in New Hope. Twin Cities really have amazing theater opportunities of all kinds.

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  17. I was the student director for The Music Man, when Martha Schmidt, the composer of Playing Hayden for the Angel of Death was Marion, and MerlecSsvage, who Ben knows, was Harold Hill. I sewed two gusdy three peace suits for Harold and another male lead.

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  18. I saw several August Wilson plays at Penumbra. If memory serves, I saw Fences, Ma Rainey’s Black Bottom, and the Piano Lesson there. Penumbra is a cozy space and I remember being consistently impressed with the set design.

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  21. Do you recall the series of Athol Fugard plays that were done by several local theaters years ago? Wonderful!! I saw Harvey with Jimmy Stuart in London and also at the same visit, saw Henry Fonda as Clarence Darrow. So many wonderful Guthrie plays- Foxfire with Jessica Tandy where she truly became 18 years ago for a few moments, Crowns, so many others.

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