And A Pinch Of Cyanide

It's the double-take that hooks the audience every time.

Oh, "Arsenic and Old Lace" hints that it's more "Addams Family" than "My Three Sons" from the very beginning. Abby and Martha Brewster may look like the sweetest little old ladies in Brooklyn, but it's clear there's more than meets the eye.

For one thing, their brother, Teddy, thinks he's President Theodore Roosevelt and charges San Juan Hill every time he goes up the stairs in the quaintly Victorian home. He also digs holes in the basement -- locks for the Panama Canal -- and the local cops salute him and report on the war effort when they visit.

Abby and Martha's nephew, Mortimer, is a drama critic, and there's a long discourse early in the play with the neighbor, the Rev. Harper, about the evils of theater and how much happier Mortimer had been writing for the real estate section.

Elaine, the Rev. Harper's daughter, and Mortimer have just decided to be married when he makes the double-take discovery: There's a body in the window seat. If the actor playing Mortimer doesn't get the double-take right, all is lost.

Fortunately, Doug Robinson does.

Robinson, in his fourth show at the Arts Center of the Ozarks, remembers seeing the Joseph Kesselring classic when he was about 10 years old. "When they announced the season, I knew I wanted to try out," says Robinson, who played the younger playwright in "Death Trap." "And truthfully, I'm afraid to look in the window seat every night!"

It's the broad humor -- like Teddy blowing his bugle and Mortimer's physical comedy -- that director Harry Blundell thinks might surprise audiences. "It's not just witty," he says. And, he adds, Mortimer's double-take "should be the best double-take in the world."

Blundell liked the show for the ACO season because it can accommodate a wide age range among the actors. Patricia Smith, an ACO veteran who plays Martha, is 73, and her cohort, conspirator and on-stage sister, Judy Scott, is 76. Although they've done a lot of theater together, these are the first starring roles they've shared.

"Judy forced me into it," Smith says about auditioning. And Scott agrees. "Yes, it's true." Both wanted to work with Blundell again before his retirement, and both liked the idea of playing roles suited to their ages -- although both appear much younger in real life than the characters do.

"I like comedy because it's so much about the timing," says Smith, who recently wrote and produced her own original comedy. "It's a lot harder than [drama], and the subtleties of these little old ladies are so much fun. We can just look at each other and know..."

"But Abby's in charge," Scott reminds. "Even if Martha thinks she is."

While Scott and Smith have been around the ACO for decades, Billy Bryant is another relative newcomer, having appeared in "Spider's Web" and "Whales of August." He is not, however, new to the role of Dr. Einstein, sidekick to Mortimer's long-lost and deeply frightening brother Jonathan. He played the sniveling and cowardly character 13 years ago at Greenland High School. And "deep down," it was the role he wanted again.

David Godwin, another ACO veteran, says he would have taken whatever role he was given, but he's still somewhat surprised to find himself playing "a crazy guy who thinks he's Teddy Roosevelt." But, he adds, what happens on stage is only part of the reason he keeps coming back to ACO.

"It's all these wonderful people," he says, looking around the green room at co-stars eating chips and cheese dip, studying their lines, visiting and laughing.

"It's always been the best part," Smith agrees.

And besides, Scott adds in passing, "who doesn't love this show?"

Whodunnit? And how many times? You'll have to stick around after the double-take to find out.

NAN What's Up on 04/08/2016