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COPYRIGHT 2005 Society for the Advancement of Education
THE INITIAL STAGE PRODUCTION of Joseph Kesselring's black comedy "Arsenic and Old Lace" started its pre-Broadway run to the Great White Way 65 years ago. Eventually opening in January of 1941, the mega-hit would run until June, 1944. Today's fans of this dark comedy usually come by way of director Frank Capra's celebrated 1941 adaptation, though the picture was not released until 1944. Though now seen as completely innocuous, that originally was not the case.
The story finds two sweet little old ladies (Josephine Hull and Jean Adair, who also starred on Broadway) welcoming lonely unattached elderly men into their boardinghouse home only to slip them some elderberry wine ... with a touch of arsenic. The philosophy of these delightfully demented women is that these lonely men will be happier when the troubles of this world are over. A brother (John...
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