Dramaturgy

Notes from the Director

by Bil Katrina

When I began developing my ideas and doing research for directing Arsenic and Old Lace, the first thing that jumped out at me was the Play’s references to the events, inside jokes and the people of its time. Not being from that era myself, some of the references made me wonder what they meant. Who were these people and events? I began to think about an audience in the year 2001 that didn’t live in the Late 1930s and Early 1940s. They might overlook some of the best pieces of comic business in the Play!

In honor of the Sixtieth Anniversary of this wonderfully dark comedy by Joseph Kesselring, let’s go back for a quick look at America in the year 1941 to get a better understanding of the era and the Play. Later, we’ll do a quick exploration into the Play’s references and a Back Story on Kesselring and his life.  I hope you enjoy this "look back" to another time. I hope too, that you will join us in October for our performances of Arsenic and Old Lace.

1941—"A date which will live in Infamy ."

•       Even though The Great Depression had ended and America was on its way back to economic prosperity, Americans were still worried about their futures because of the possibility of War.

•       In sports, the big news was the numerous successful title defenses the great boxer Joe Louis made -- seven of them in 1941. Meanwhile baseball star Hank Greenberg left baseball to join the army, a trend that many other athletes would follow.

•       Perhaps you went to see that new Walt Disney movie Dumbo, or Orson Welles' Citizen Kane. There was also a re-make of a 1931 movie, The Maltese Falcon, with this version starring the popular Humphrey Bogart.

•      1941 was the year the USO was founded-- it began establishing clubs all over the world where off-duty servicemen could relax and socialize.

•      The first fully functional program-controlled electromechanical digital computer in the world -- was completed by Konrad Zuse in 1941.

•       The economy was heating up, thanks to the fact that the US was providing materials to those fighting against the Axis. The "Lend-Lease Bill" was signed by FDR, allowing American goods and armaments to be furnished to democratic countries, which needed them to resist the Nazis.

•       In 1941 you would have enjoyed Swing Music and the Big Band Sound. You might have danced “The Lindy Hop.” Radio would have been your main means of home entertainment, but a new thing called Television was beginning to make its debut. You could buy a new car for $850, a loaf of bread was 8 cents and a gallon of milk cost 54 cents. You could buy a gallon of gas for 12 cents.

•       If you were lucky enough to be able to see a live stage performance, you may have gone to see the premier of a funny, new hit of a Play called Arsenic and Old Lace at the Fulton Theatre in New York on opening night, August 18, 1941

•     Of course, one of the major events of 1941 occurred after this play hit the stage and that was the Bombing of Pearl Harbor and the Beginning of WWII.

Mentioned in the Dialogue Play

 A BEHRMAN PLAY

Samuel Nathaniel Behrman 1893-1973, American dramatist. His sophisticated comedies often attempt to probe the consciences of the wealthy and privileged.

 THE OREGAN

USS Oregon in reality was one of the newest battleships of the American fleet in 1898. The Oregon that was the gem of the American Naval Fleet and the favorite of the real Teddy Roosevelt.

 BURNES MANTLE

A renowned theatre critic for the Chicago Tribune. He won a Tony Award in 1947 for his annual publication of The Ten Best Plays. It is interesting to note that in his 1941 publication of The Ten Best Plays, he named Arsenic and Old Lace as one of the ten best plays.

 WALTER WINCHELL (WINCHEL)

Journalist and broadcaster whose newspaper columns and radio broadcasts containing news and gossip gave him a massive audience and much influence in the United States in the 1930s, '40s, and '50s.

 PARANDELLO

Italian playwright, novelist, and short-story writer, winner of the 1934 Nobel Prize for Literature. With his invention of the “theatre within the theatre” He became an important innovator in modern drama.

 BOMBAZINE (BOMBASINE)

Textile, usually black in color, with a silk warp and worsted weft, woven in either plain or twill weave. Its principal use is as a garb of mourning.

 GENERAL GOETHALS (GEORGE WASHINGTON GOETHALS)

U.S. Army officer and engineer. Directed the building of the Panama Canal.

 CULEBRA CUT

An excavation, about 8 mi long and 45 ft deep, through Culebra Mountain, a hill in Panama. The cut forms the southeast section of the Panama Canal.

 STRINDBERG

Swedish writer of novels and plays, which are noted for their psychological realism.

 HELLZAPOPPIN

A very successful Broadway Musical in 1941. The hit of the show was the un-expected Stunts and Pranks, some extremely insulting. However no one was offended as they had "Stooges" or “Plants” in the audience that would be part of the show.

 JUDITH ANDERSON

A British actress. Notable films were Rebecca (1940), Laura (1944), and Cat on a Hot Tin Roof (1958). She was made a Dame of the British Empire in 1960.

The Man, His Life and His Work

Joseph Kesselring, the son of ethnic German parents in New York, was born on July 21, 1902. During his lifetime, he worked as an actor, writer of short stories and poems and a stage and musical director in Theatre. He died November 5, 1967 at the age of 55. His wife Charlotte renewed the copyright in 1968 and 1969.

• From 1922 to 1924 he was a professor of music at the Bethel College in Kansas.
• From 1925 to 1926 he was musical director/conductor and the director of an amateur theatre in Niagara, New York.
• Beginning in 1933 he worked as a freelance stage writer.

He wrote Arsenic and Old Lace in 1939. It was his only success. This success provided unexpected wealth for Kesselring. The piece was presented on stage as a dark comedy on August 18, 1941 and was produced by Howard Lindsay and Russel Crouse at the Fulton Theatre in New York.

 The following is the original cast in order of appearance: 

 The play was presented as the dark comedy that we all know and love today, but that is not really what the author first intended it to be. What came to be called Arsenic and Old Lace was originally intended to be a psycho-thriller, written in the style of Johan August Strindburg entitled Corpses in the Cellar. Extensive research turned up no evidence of the original story.

Arsenic and Old Lace was made into a film in 1944. The film of the same name was produced by Frank Capra and starred Cary Grant. It quickly became a film classic and remains so to this day.

The “Write” of Life

Most writers pull ideas from real people and real lives all the time, and Kesselring was no exception to this.

Joseph Kesselring’s father, Ronald Kesselring was a famous New York surgeon. The younger Kesselring had very mixed feelings about his father’s work. These feelings developed into the character “Doctor Herman Einstein” and in the description of the deceased, off-line character “Grandfather Brewster”

As is done by many playwrights, Kesselring wrote his personal life in two of Arsenic’s characters. Theodore Roosevelt, being the foundation for the character “Teddy Brewster”, was the personification of Kesselring’s feelings of pride, patriotism and raw courage. The character being most like the author is the totally self-absorbed playwright, Officer Patrick O’Hara, who, like Kesselring in real life, was totally focused on being a legitimate stage writer.

Happy Anniversary A&OL

This year marks the sixtieth anniversary of this American Classic called Arsenic and Old Lace by Mr. Joseph Kesselring. As one director of this play in a long line of directors, past, present and future, in both the amateur and professional theatre. I fervently hope that our production of Arsenic and Old Lace honors the man, his life and his work.