Arsenic and Old Lace is kind of an old chestnut, but J. R. Sullivan's farcically savvy direction and the cast's inspired comic performances fill it with exuberant fun. Mortimer (Brian Vaughn) seems the only normal note in a zany family. One of his brothers thinks he's Teddy Roosevelt (Kieran Connolly), and the other is a criminal whose latest face-lift makes him resemble Boris Karloff (David Ivers). His maiden aunts, Abby (Laurie Birmingham) and Martha (Leslie Brott), have developed a unique way of practicing Christian charity.
Vaughn can transform walking across a room and peering into a window seat into a comic routine, and Birmingham and Brott bounce around Thomas Umfrid's Gothic Victorian set like a couple of Energizer bunnies. Connolly's outrageously over-the-top Teddy contrasts smartly with Ivers' sinister and smoldering Jonathan. Linda Essig's low-key lighting intensifies the mayhem. Mary Dolson, Mark Brown, and a slew of Brooklyn policemen offer able comic support.
