
02 NOV – 22 DEC 2009
daily at 7.30pm, ex. Sundays
ticket sales from 05 October 2009
Act 1:
Interval:
Act 2:
play ends at approx.
65 minutes
20 minutes
60 minutes
10 pm
Synopsis
_
First produced in 1941, this frenzied, madcap black comedy has become world famous through the Frank Capra film starring Cary Grant.
The story revolves around the theatre-hating drama critic Mortimer Brewster and his two sweet and thoughtful old aunts Martha and Abby. On the same evening as Mortimer gets engaged to next door neighbour, Elaine, he accidentally discovers that his dear aunts have developed a very bad habit: they poison lonely old men with their homemade elderberry wine (laced with arsenic, strychnine and a pinch of cyanide), in order to save them from the sorrows of this world. They then leave it to their crazy but harmless nephew Teddy (who believes he is President Teddy Roosevelt) to dig graves in the cellar for those “yellow fever casualties working on the Panama Canal”. Just as Mortimer tries to get a grip on this situation, his long lost murderous brother Jonathan reappears looking like Boris Karloff after a badly performed plastic surgery with his alcoholic accomplice Dr. Einstein and a dead body in tow. The seemingly idyllic Brewster home now finally turns into a complete madhouse in which Mortimer has to try to save his sanity as well as his life.
Abby Brewster
The Rev. Dr. Harper
Lieutenant Rooney
Teddy Brewster
Officer Brophy
Martha Brewster
Elaine Harper
Mortimer Brewster
Mr. Gibbs
Mr. Witherspoon
Jonathan Brewster
Dr. Einstein
Officer O’Hara
Directed by
Designed by
Amanda Reed
Alan Blyton
Simon Lloyd
Thomas Richardson
Diana Scougall
Olivia Wright
Edward Handoll
David Horne
Toby Sharp
Timothy Speyer
Neil Bromley
Philip Dart
Terry Parsons