You had mentioned that you had never seen the play or movie version of Arsenic and Old Lace.
Arsenic and Old Lace is a mystery-farce (actually a comedy of murders) involving a Movie Critic named Mortimer Brewster. Mortimer’s entire family (with the exception of himself) are criminally insane. His two sweet elderly aunts have a hobby of murdering old men by poisoning them with arsenic-laced home-made wine.
One of Mortimer’s brothers believes himself to be Teddy Roosevelt and believes that he is digging the Panama Canal in the basement (his trenches are convenient graves for his aunt’s victims). Teddy is the role being played by Vitamin. The references by other posters to stashing bodies in the window seat is where the old ladies keep the bodies until they are buried by Teddy.
A second brother, Jonathan (being played by Gruesome here) is a homicidal maniac on the run from the law. His associate, Dr. Einstein, is a plastic surgeon who has re-done Jonathan’s face. Unfortunately, he has just seen the movie Frankenstein and Jonathan’s face ends up looking like Boris Karloff (similar to the events in this story arc).
As with many farces, the plot becomes comically complicated Mortimer finds out about his relatives’ murderous behaviors and tries to hide all of this from his fiance and the police and stop the murders without going insane himself.
The play was originally written in the late 1930s (it debuted in 1941) and contains many political references and jokes pertinent to that time period. The dialogue in yesterday’s strip concerning Woodrow Wilson were exact quotes from the script.
Despite the many untimely references, the play, if done correctly, is still quite hilarious today and is periodically revived professionally. Unfortunately, it has been done by so many high schools and community theatres that is has gained the status of “an old chesnut” (kind of like Vitamin, egad) by many in the professional theatrical community due to the number of poor-quality amateur productions over its almost 75 years. However, the plot is so wacky that even the bad productions tend to get laughs from the audience. Teddy shouting “Charge” and running up the stairs (as shown in today’s strip) is a running gag of the show.
@tsull2121
You had mentioned that you had never seen the play or movie version of Arsenic and Old Lace.
Arsenic and Old Lace is a mystery-farce (actually a comedy of murders) involving a Movie Critic named Mortimer Brewster. Mortimer’s entire family (with the exception of himself) are criminally insane. His two sweet elderly aunts have a hobby of murdering old men by poisoning them with arsenic-laced home-made wine.
One of Mortimer’s brothers believes himself to be Teddy Roosevelt and believes that he is digging the Panama Canal in the basement (his trenches are convenient graves for his aunt’s victims). Teddy is the role being played by Vitamin. The references by other posters to stashing bodies in the window seat is where the old ladies keep the bodies until they are buried by Teddy.
A second brother, Jonathan (being played by Gruesome here) is a homicidal maniac on the run from the law. His associate, Dr. Einstein, is a plastic surgeon who has re-done Jonathan’s face. Unfortunately, he has just seen the movie Frankenstein and Jonathan’s face ends up looking like Boris Karloff (similar to the events in this story arc).
As with many farces, the plot becomes comically complicated Mortimer finds out about his relatives’ murderous behaviors and tries to hide all of this from his fiance and the police and stop the murders without going insane himself.
The play was originally written in the late 1930s (it debuted in 1941) and contains many political references and jokes pertinent to that time period. The dialogue in yesterday’s strip concerning Woodrow Wilson were exact quotes from the script.
Despite the many untimely references, the play, if done correctly, is still quite hilarious today and is periodically revived professionally. Unfortunately, it has been done by so many high schools and community theatres that is has gained the status of “an old chesnut” (kind of like Vitamin, egad) by many in the professional theatrical community due to the number of poor-quality amateur productions over its almost 75 years. However, the plot is so wacky that even the bad productions tend to get laughs from the audience. Teddy shouting “Charge” and running up the stairs (as shown in today’s strip) is a running gag of the show.