Drinking wine with older women can be dangerous

Decades before "The Addams Family Musical" played Broadway, another weird family made theater audiences gasp and laugh. And generations before Freddy Kreuger slashed his way around the silver screen, Boris Karloff frightened movie goers as ­Frankenstein.

Theater aficionados know that the Brewster family in the 1941 smash hit "Arsenic and Old Lace" was oddly dysfunctional and frightening in different ways, with a sinister psychopath brother who has had plastic surgery to look like Boris Karloff. Karloff was cast as the brother. This play is haunted by Boris Karloff's Frankenstein.

But the other family members, also odd, were lovable and funny.

Theater Arts Guild's "Arsenic and Old Lace" opened last weekend at Mount Vernon's Lincoln Theatre. It is not a musical, a break for the youth-oriented organization, and all the actors are adults. The cast are truly characters – for the most part, excepting the Rev. Dr. Harper (James Kane) and his daughter, Elaine (Danielle Shaw, playing feisty and independent well).

The two aunts, Abby and Martha Brewster (Diane Marr Longmire and Beth Greatorex, respectively) are as gentle and affable as can be. They are also sympathetic to the plight of old men boarding at their turn-of-the-20th-century Brooklyn home.

One is sweeter than the other. They offer sandwiches, coffee and tea to almost all company but reserve their specially laced elderberry wine for old men they deem lonely and without hope. The two are deliciously consistent in their pious concerns and desire to help and bring a final peace to them as they understand it,

Nephew Mortimer Brewster (Mike Riverun) is earnest, energetic, smart – a newspaper theater reviewer – and about to get engaged to Elaine in the opening scene. Brother Teddy (Kevin Cobley) lives with their aunts. He believes he is Teddy Roosevelt, dressing the part, giving speeches and signing proclamations, off to the basement to dig the Panama Canal. He is most energetic when he rushes up the stairs – his San Juan Hill – always with a loud "Charge!" At various times he will blow his bugle, too.

Cobley has a remarkable energy and his appearance from Row E was very Roosevelt-like.

His costumes (great job, Ria Peth) range from safari khaki with pith helmet to a frock coat going to his knees. The aunts costumes are also great period pieces.

Brother Jonathan (Don Brady) is a surprise and unwelcome guest. His accomplice, Dr. Einstein (an accented Andy Russell, employs a variety of body contortions and positions while in the background) has, for some reason, recreated Jonathan's face to resemble Karloff.

Watch Jonathan's hands, as well. They have an instinct and urge to strangle Mortimer.

Nobody in the family likes Jonathan. They all want him to leave.

Before the play opens, the sisters had just served a glass of their arsenic-laced elderberry wine to their border Mr. Hoskins – providing him a peace not past their understanding – and had placed him in the window seat, for Teddy to take the body down to the basement to be buried.

Mortimer stumbles over the body, metaphorically. He freaks out and then scales his anxiety up when he learns this is border number 13 whose loneliness angst the aunts have solved. Mortimer goes into problem solving mode and decides Teddy taking the rap for the murders will be just fine because he will be going to Happydale once Teddy signs papers committing himself.

Except the aunts don't want Teddy to go. They love and are committed to him. What if he is a bit eccentric? They recognize that runs in the family, with Mortimer's straightness the odd guy out.

The aunts do not understand their nephew, misunderstanding among family members being common in theater.

Those 13 bodies would be the central dilemma – if Jonathan had not shown up. It turns out he has a dozen bodies of his own that he has just as proudly buried, all around the world.

Where are the cops when you need them? They are all around. Officers Brophy (Paul DePiro) and Klein (Andy Buchanan) are 1940s cops, eager for coffee and cake and pushing their caps back on their heads. O'Hara (Jesse Phillips) shows up later. Turns out he has dreams of being a playwright – and doesn't hesitate to act out his characters.

Lt. Rooney (Dale Lankford) is about as sharp and aware as his crew.

The characters are typecast and play their assigned roles to a T.

Opening night proved what community theater is all about, as a supportive audience of family and friends cheered, clapped and gave a standing ovation to the cast and crew even before the special surprise of the 13 bodies coming up out of the basement.

"Arsenic and Old Lace" is directed by Mike Jenkins and produced by Ria Peth, Dan Toomey and Brett Madden.

The 1939 play by Joseph Kesselring was his most successful.

The production runs weekends through Oct. 13. Tickets and times at lincolntheatre.org/; 360-336-8955.