Kenneth Gray

Joseph Kesselring's dark comedy farce Arsenic and Old Lace dates back to 1941 and was made into one hilarious film starring Cary Grant and directed by Frank Capra in 1944. Nevertheless, the comedy is timeless, so it still holds up quite deliciously in 2016. One never tires of murder especially when it's played out in a spooky old Brooklyn mansion adjacent to a cemetery...and most of the Brewster family who inhabit it are most definitely certifiable. Elderly Abby Brewster (Robin LaValley) and her sister Martha (Eliane Weidauer) dispose of over the hill lodgers all alone in the world - to bring them peace and eternal happiness. They offer homemade Eldeberry wine laced with arsenic and think they're doing the old codgers a favor. It seems perfectly harmless to them. In fact, they already have 11 bodies buried in the cellar and are about to embark on a funeral service for number 12 who is resting comfortably in the window seat of their living room. It helps when their nephew Teddy (Robin Thompson) - who thinks he's Theodore Roosevelt - carries out their orders and buries the bodies, convinced that he's digging locks of the Panama Canal. When brother Mortimer (Tim Benson) - a drama critic for a local paper - discovers the body by accident, he automatically assumes it's Teddy who has killed the man, never dreaming that his sweet aunts are responsible.

The Hudson Backstage Theatre on Theatre Row in Hollywood is currently running West Side Story, the classic Romeo and Juliet tale set in New York City. With a talented cast and a small, sparse stage, the company did an impressive job telling such a large story on such a small scale...