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Synopsis. Mortimer Brewster is living a happy life: he has a steady job at a prominent New York newspaper, he’s just become engaged, and he gets to visit his sweet spinster aunts to announce the engagement.
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Joseph Kesselring’s Arsenic and Old Lace opened on Broadway...
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Arsenic and Old Lace (Play) Portrayals
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Arsenic and Old Lace opens in the living room of the Brewster home, inhabited by two spinster aunts, Abby and Martha Brewster, and their nephew, Teddy. Rev. Dr. Harper is chatting with Abby about her other nephew, Mortimer, who in love with the reverend’s daughter, Elaine.
Synopsis. New York drama critic Mortimer Brewster ( Cary Grant ), despite being the acclaimed author of The Bachelors Bible (and Marriage, a Fraud and a Failure, and Mind over Matrimony) has finally agreed to marry his sweetheart, Elaine Harper ( Priscilla Lane ).
We meet the charming and innocent ladies who populate their cellar with the remains of socially and religiously "acceptable" roomers; the antics of their brother who thinks he is Teddy Roosevelt; and the activities of the other brother—these require no further description or amplification here.
Arsenic and Old Lace The Theatre: In Arsenic and Old Lace, Kesselring suggests that the theatre reflects life only in absurd situations. As a critic, Mortimer blames the theatre for not being realistic enough. Ironically, Mortimer fails to realize that the situation he is in is more absurd than the plays he reviews.
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In Arsenic and Old Lace, Mortimer’s family is as crazy as they come but he goes to extreme lengths to defend them. Out of this sense of identity and family loyalty Mortimer tries to rescue his aunts from their misguided murdering while his brothers also wrestle with their own identities.
Arsenic and Old Lace was wildly successful, receiving almost universal praise. “This absurdly gruesome yet gloriously funny comedy . . . ran in New York for 1444 performances and in London for 1337, the longest in the British capital for any American play” (Cornelia Otis Skinner, Life with Lindsay and Crouse.
