OCR Text |
Show Local Play Reviewed Humor An Individual Thing In 'Arsenic and Old Laos' eral people often gave the set a cluttered effect. Looking at other characters, we have Jonathan Brewster and Dr. Einstein. Curf Graf plays Jonathan, the black sheep who returns to terrorize terror-ize his family. Tension is evident throughout through-out his performance and he keeps it interesting by letting the audience know his quirks gradually. Steve Lloyd, as the drunken Dr. Einstein, lets us see all of the qualities of the crazed doctor in his first scene. A little Peter Lorre, a little Sven the grocer, a punk from Brooklyn's east side and a German professor are shown. He got laughs, but I felt they were due to his inconsistency. If anyone's charactor called for split personalities, I would think it would come from Mortimer, since he's the one who's identity is in question. Others in the cast are Ron Burnett, who finds a frivolous frivol-ous nature to his portrayal of Officer O'Hara, the frustrated frustrat-ed playwright. Ron Robidoux plays tow roles. First, Mr. Gibbs, a lonely man in need of a place to stay and a drink of wine, and Lt. Rooney. Both performances had a rote feeling as lines were ddhrcr-ed. ddhrcr-ed. Ennis Gibbs was Officer Brophy. In both of his scenes he gave an extremely happy and enthusiastic performance. perfor-mance. I wondered what he was so happy about, but never learned. And there was Bob Graf as Mr. Witherspoon, who describes himself as being aloof, and that he was: 'Arsenic and Old Lace" continues Friday and Saturday Satur-day .-Dec. 17 and 18, with an 8:00 p.m. curtain at Prospector Prospec-tor Square. Elaine Harper for. her own welfare. Maw displays good timing. Result: many well deserved laughs from the audience. Roxanne Shapiro plays Harper. Har-per. Rosanne's beautiful deportment deport-ment on stage could have been helped if she stood still occasionally, for she moves on her's and other people's lines, giving each scene aimless direction. You could say that poor Elaine doesn't know whether she's coming or going with Mortimer, so the staggering might work, but it doesn't. Rosanne also needs to vary her voice quality with a lower register. It became difficult to listen to what she was saying, because her tone stayed on such a high level. Her choice of costumes was excellent and accentuated her beauty. It should be mentioned here that the cast did its own costuming and the players blended very well in a 1940 "Arsenic and Old Lace," a murder spoof written by ' Joseph Hesslring, opened Dec. 10 at the Prospector Square Theater. Produced by Intermountain Actors Ensemble and directed direct-ed by Linda Martin, the production brings a cast of twelve capable actors to the stage. What was missing was Ms. Martin's intention about .what would be the ingredients ingre-dients for the comedic aspect of the play. She appeared not to trust that the script would bring about laughter, so she chose to direct the actors to each find humorous qualities in their characters. The result, in general, was the loss of important, witty dialogue. However, the pace and overall visual aspects of this production were well done and the ensemble earns compliments for it's work. "Arsenic and Old Lace", is the story of two sisters, Abby and Martha Brewster, who put lonely male visitors to rest with fatal glasses of elderberry wine. It is also the story of their nephews, Teddy the psychopath, psycho-path, Mortimer the theatre critic, and Jonathan the gangster. Leslie Luyken plays Abby and Madeline Smith plays Martha. The two sisters are portrayed portray-ed as sweet and compassionate compassion-ate old ladies. They are rarely seen apart. Hence, the two become one with that description. Luyken shows the sweet and Smith the compassion. The actresses display levelheaded, level-headed, matter-of-fact atti: tudes in their charactors and appear to be equally guided by the other. When we see them, neither looks the leader or follower. Martin needed a team to portray these sisters and I believe she succeeded by casting Luyken and Smith. The qualities of old age the both young actresses chose, were very good. Their movement was limited with mincing steps and crooked gestures, but not to extreme. Mortimer, played by Clayton Clay-ton Maw portrays the theatre critic who supposedly gained his position by being inherently inher-ently critical throughout his young life. Maw gives a convincing performance of someone who has a simple goal at the beginning of the play, but is quickly overtaken with panic as he realizes the insanity of his relatives. He convinces himself that all Brewsters are insane and, if it runs at a gallop in the family, he'd better break his engagement with girlfriend era. In the opening scene, Abby and Mrs. Harper (Barbara Gibbs) are discussing the papers that will eventually send Teddy to Happy Dale Sanitarium when his aunts pass on. Enter, exit, enter, exit, Teddy played by Van martin. An energetic performance with gruff in his voice and excitement in his eyes, Martin plays with the only admitted role of insanity. When he was onstage, we saw a hunched body scheming schem-ing with authority as the presidential hopeful. But when he's offstage, we forget about his presence in the house. Perhaps reminders of Teddy Ted-dy left around the set would have made him more comical, comi-cal, so the audience could see his personality all of the time. Instead, what we saw were abrupt, forced appearances. appear-ances. Martin was also the set designer and he designed a realistic Victorian style living room equipped with window seat, french windows, and a stained glass front'Tdoor, through which light always poured, even during scene changes. But the lighting was harsh when up, and offended the viewer. There is an orderly organization organi-zation to the Brewster home, which is often lit by several candlepieces. Traffic among the set seemed easy, except when the majority of the cast was on stage. There were no interesting body arrangements and sev- |