Students from Concordia International School Shanghai displayed their thespian talent when they staged two performances of Arsenic and Old Lace for their fall play, dazzling hundreds of audience members with their comic panache.

 

The classic Joseph Kesselring play which was made into a 1944 Frank Capra film, examines the institution of marriage and mental illness in the family. The plot revolves around two elderly sisters, Abby (Amanda Gnaedinger, grade 10) and Martha (Gretchen Adickes, grade 11), who have been poisoning widowers at their Brooklyn boarding house, supposedly as charitable acts of euthanasia. All this is carried out with the help of their nephew, Teddy (Caitlin George, grade nine), who thinks he's former US President Teddy Roosevelt.

 

Their "charity" is interrupted when another nephew, Mortimer (Daniel Poppell, grade 12), discovers their work and tries to put a stop to it before anyone else - including his fiancee Elaine (Ruth McLachlin, grade 11) - gets hurt or discovers the murders.

 

Mortimer's efforts to protect his aunts (and the greater public for that matter) are impeded by the return of his cousin and nemesis, Jonathan (William Shiang, grade nine), and his unwilling sidekick Dr Einstein (Ben Adickes, grade nine) who has dirty secrets of his own to conceal.

 

This production of Arsenic and Old Lace was directed by Concordia faculty members Kimberli Gertz and Holly Poppell. The set design and sound were accomplished by Todd Luedtke and lights were managed by David Larson.

 

(Shanghai Daily December 27, 2006)