Review: MTP Live Up to Promise of "Arsenic and Old Lace"
Greg Wilson/Anderson Observer
Just in time for Halloween, the Mill Town Players bring the homicidal Brewsters of Brooklyn to the stage for more than two hours of darkly silly fun, with an appreciative opening night audience that laughed loudly throughout the evening.
In the era of true-crime podcasts, and such television series as “Only Murders in the Building,” Joseph Kesserling’s play, “Arsenic and Old Lace,” which first hit the stage in January of 1941, remains fresh, and the Mill Town Players find just the right groove, nearly flawless as they dance to the playwright’s words which are on the edge of the macabre.
The cast is pitch perfect as they move throughout the ominously told story of a family tradition of matter-of-fact murders, with some of the most unlikely members keeping score of their villainous killings.
Sweet sisters Aunt Abby and Aunt Martha are introduced as the best of neighbors, rushing hot soup to ailing neighbors and serving high tea to the minister next door. Their family and community sees the Brewster sisters as angels, with no clue they are in fact angels of death, poisoning homeless old men with no families and burying them in the basement in what they see as acts of kindess.
Lynn Campbell as Abby and Anne Roberts as Martha, command the stage as clueless aging spinsters who are baffled why anyone would consider the rising count of dead bodies in the cellar as anything indecent. They embrace engaging lunacy with a wacky fervor, and almost succeed in gaining sympathy.
Their chief gravedigger is a nephew Teddy, who lives in their house and for reasons never explained thinks he is Theodore Roosevelt. Teddy buries his aunt’s victims in the cellar, which he thinks is in Panama. Alex Robinson more meets the challenge of being a nutcase in a play chock full o'nuts, with an antic, and sometimes a little twitchy performance as the man who thinks he is the 26th president.
Cameron Woodson shines throughout as Mortimer Brewster, the cynical drama critic who begins to doubt his plans for marriage as the Brewster family DNA shows serious gaps in sanity. Mortimer’s bravado and confidence erode as he faces the reality of his murderous aunts. By the time his long-lost brother and erstwhile criminal Jonathan shows up, he’s convinced marriage and continuing such a family line is no longer a good idea.
Jesse Winner’s Jonathan, who thanks to some excellent makeup looks enough like Boris Karloff, the actor who portrayed Frankenstein’s monster on the big screen, to be Boris Karloff thanks to a face replacement performed by his strange sidekick Dr. Einstein. Winner’s Jonathan moves from maniacal lost brother to growling Frankenstein monster, is a veteran murderer himself, taking pride in his tally of 12 (or 13 if you count the one who died of pneumonia) murders. He maintains the monstrous antics, even when literally flipping his wig in one scene.
Bruce Meahl’s Dr. Einstein is straight out of vaudeville, a sad sack crazy scientist with a German accent who had what seems to be a reluctant, but active, role in Jonathan’s crimes. Meahl shows he has the chops for the role, and manages to avoid becoming a cliche.
The rest of the cast is a match for the mostly sharp writing, notably Megan Wallace as Mortimer’s fiancé Elaine Harper, excellent in a role that maybe deserved better character development in the original script. and Alan Russell as Police Lieutenant Rooney, one of the most authentic New York cops I’ve seen on any stage in the Upstate, added to the fun of the production.
Working with this top cast, director Jesse Siak preserves a wildly entertaining tone throughout without slipping into what could easily erode into a silly farce or get lost in the actual horror of what is happening in the story.
Finally, it is not hyperbole to suggest that no theater in South Carolina (and the region beyond) creates more spectacular sets than those at the historic Pelzer theater when the Mill Town Players take the stage. This time the stage featured the parlor of a 1941 aging Brooklyn residence, and the detail and flourishes brought a life of it’s own to the play, with nary a misstep in the complicated, yet clean, design. How Cameron Woodson managed to both star in and serve is an achievement few can boast anywhere, and Scenic Artist Abby Brown also deserves major accolades for their work on this one.
“Arsenic and Old Lace” has survived for more than 80 years not only due to the popularity of the movie, but because of productions of the play by theater groups who know how to do it right. Mill Town Players can be proud to be counted among such theater groups.
The play runs through Oct. 22. Tickets available here.