'Arsenic' will please audiences

ARSENIC AND OLD LACE, Old Lyric Repertory Company, Logan, through Aug. 5 (435-752-1500 or 435-752-0026, extension 14). Running time: two hours, 42 minutes (two intermissions).

LOGAN — Although it sounds like an oxymoron, death can be a funny business.

This is proved by the Old Lyric production of the dark comedy "Arsenic and Old Lace," which has been poking fun at the macabre for half a century.

It's obvious from the outset that some of the characters in this standard of the American stage are . . . well . . . nuts. In fact, Mortimer Brewster (Kent Hadfield) notes to his fiancee, Elaine (Katie Ackerman), that insanity doesn't just run in the Brewster family — it gallops.

The first obvious oddball we meet is Teddy Brewster (Jed Broberg), who has long thought he was Teddy Roosevelt, and he charges up San Juan Hill (actually, the staircase) several times a day for his "cabinet meetings." Broberg brings a likable charm to his Teddy character but maybe falls just one notch short of the overdone goofiness we need to see from this incarnation of Roosevelt.

The audience is introduced in the second act to long-lost brother Johnathan Brewster (Dan Merket), and he is loony, too, in a nasty Boris Karloff kind of way. Johnathan and his sidekick, Dr. Einstein (W. Lee Daily), play off each other well and dominate the production's midsection.

Actually, "Arsenic" takes a while to find its legs, but a scene played with limited lighting — a couple of dead bodies flopping about, window seats slamming and corpses thumping their way down the cellar steps — is what pushes this production into easy-laugh mode, which it maintains to the very end.

Daily in the dark provides a laugh-out-loud moment, and here's a nod to OLRC lighting designer Bruce Duerden for making the atmosphere perfect.

Speaking of perfect, the creaky old stairs are almost a character, as Daily ends up doing Peter Lorre better than Peter Lorre. (Lorre played Dr. Einstein in the 1944 Frank Capra film classic.)

Which brings us to sisters Martha and Abby Brewster (Jackie Fullmer and Jan Hines). Are they just likable old ladies or also perfect candidates for the funny farm? Thereby hangs the comedic edge of "Arsenic," and it is played very well by these local stage jewels. Except for being a little too pat-happy — that is, not being able to keep their hands off other characters — the pair bring a delightful charm and precision that serves as glue to the production all evening long.