'Arsenic and Old Lace' Kills at Chautauqua Playhouse

"Insanity runs in the family, it practically gallops," Mortimer Brewster, a drama critic, tells his fiance Elaine Harper in the dark comedy play Arsenic and Old Lace, playing now at the in Carmichael.

Harper (played by Amy Williams) doesn't know the half of it.

Mortimer (Aaron Horne) is at the home of his spinster aunts Abby (Susan Madden) and Martha (Eileen Beaver) in Brooklyn, N.Y. when he finds a dead body in their living room window seat. Mortified, he asks them about it and they confess that they relieve the loneliness of single old men by inviting them in for a nice glass of homemade elderberry wine.

They just happen to mix in a few ingredients of their own: arsenic, strychnine and "just a pinch" of cyanide.

Mortimer's brother Teddy (John Walck) thinks he's President Teddy Roosevelt and digs locks for the Panama Canal in his aunts' basement, which turn out to be grave sites for a dozen men.

Another brother Jonathan (Rodger Hoopman) arrives with Dr. Einstein (Michael Beckett). Einstein could be called Dr. Frankenstein, as characters agree the surgery he has performed on Jonathan has left him looking like Boris Karloff, the actor who portrayed Frankenstein's Monster.

Walck and Hoopman immerse themselves in their characters. Hoopman is the founder and producer of te Chautauqua Playhouse and both he and Walck have performed in past plays.

Madden and Beaver, both former Chautauqua actresses, do a great job of portraying the Brewster sisters as kind little old ladies who wouldn't hurt a fly but then again that's what some people said about real-life Sacramento serial killer Dorothea Puente.

The great cast is rounded out by Chris Lamb in the dual roles of Rev. Harper, Elaine's father, and Officer Rooney; Bob Nannini as Officer Brophy; Jerold McFatter as Officer Klein and David McHenry in the dual roles of Mr. Gibbs, a potential houseguest, and Mr. Witherspoon.

The play, written by Joseph Kesselring in 1939, is directed locally by Jill McMahon.

Without spoling the outcome, the Brewster sisters and Jonathan, who admits to having killed people as well, try to one up each other. Will any of them go to jail? Will any of them go free? Get out to the Chautauqua Playhouse as soon as possible if you haven't already.

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Have you seen this play? What did you think? Please tell us in a comment below.

"Arsenic and Old Lace" is in production through July 22 at the Chautauqua Playhouse on Engle Road in Carmichael. Show times are 8 p.m. Fridays and Saturdays and 2 p.m. Sundays.