/Theatre
Arsenic and Old Lace
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The grandmother of dark comedies gets a mischievous and campy makeover as Artistic Director Matt M. Morrow makes her Center REP directorial debut. Newly engaged theater critic Mortimer discovers his two elderly Aunts are harboring some killer secrets, just as his estranged brother descends upon the family home, upending everything he thought to be true in his life. To save his family, his fiancé, and his own sanity, Mortimer must learn to navigate a new world gone mad… all while trying to make the 8 o’clock curtain. Deliciously macabre, classically winsome, and queerishly delightful, get ready for a new vision for one of theater’s most enduring comedies.
SF/Arts Curator Insight
Among the many reasons to see this 1941 comedy by Joseph Kesselring in which a theater critic (Cary Grant in the 1944 film version) discovers his dear old aunties are a touch murderous: It’s Center Rep new artistic director Matt M. Morrow’s inaugural production; he’s giving the old chestnut a “campy” and “queerishly delightful” makeover--and the aunties are played by none other than Danny Scheie and Michael Patrick Gaffney. ’Nuff said.
Jean Schiffman
Contributing Writer, Theater
Center REPertory Company