The poster announced a dramatic reading, which struck me as a flagrant breach of the Trade Descriptions Act. In the event, what we got was a fully staged play, complete with costumes, props, furniture, lighting, sound and a continual flurry of action that kept the audience breathless. The actors all had scripts in their hands, and now and then they seemed to look at them, but that never detracted from the pace or the fun. ‘A joyful romp’ would have been a more precise way to advertise the performance.
One of the most surprising things about this breakneck comedy was its subject matter; how could you make people laugh at the antics of deranged homicides? Yet that is exactly what we did, and the laughter left no bitter aftertaste; we knew we had been watching an innocent frolic, a harmless spoof of all those horror dramas that fill the theatre, cinema and television.
You probably know the essence of the story: two benevolent old ladies in Brooklyn repeatedly poisoning solitary old gentlemen with the disinterested intention of putting an end to their loneliness. We were asked to believe they did this as an act of pure Christian charity, and we did so easily. The leader of the two—Bonnie Taylor, as Abby Brewster—convinced us of her universal kindness and generosity, while Judy Burgess, as her sister Martha, happily and lovingly tagged along. They had just disposed of one victim when the play opened, and, to our delight, they were in the act of dealing with another as it closed.
Of course the entire family was unusual. Their nephew Teddy believed he was President Theodore Roosevelt, and his main work was digging the Panama Canal in the cellar. This proved a great convenience for burying the bodies that his aunts so often produced, but he also had the habit of blowing a bugle, to the furious irritation of the neighbours, though watching Graham Fitzgerald’s busy and cheerful performance made it easy to see why the police were so tolerant of his eccentricities.
There was another nephew, Jonathan, who was less lovable, in spite of being compellingly played by David Gardner. In fact, he had recently escaped from a high-security hospital in Indiana, where he had been imprisoned for life as a homicidal maniac. Now he came to hide in his aunts’ house, bringing with him Hermann Einstein (Harlequin, with a terrifying grin) a plastic surgeon to give him yet another face instead of his current likeness to Boris Karloff.
Adrian Hughes gave a sympathetic but helpless performance as Jonathan’s brother, Mortimer Brewster, who seemed refreshingly normal if you could overlook the fact that he was a theatre critic. He was engaged to the clergyman’s daughter, Elaine Harper; Margaret Pritchard Houston’s powerful performance made it no surprise that he was putty in her hands, but of course she didn’t realise what he had suddenly discovered was going on in the house. Said Abdallah, as her father, was sufficiently shocked that Mortimer was connected with the theatre, but of course he had every confidence in the two old ladies.
The police force was admirably represented by Nicky Siddall as Brophy, Nicolas Holzapfel as Klein. Simon May was touchingly tiresome as the policeman who wanted to be a playwright and wouldn’t stop talking about it. Hoda Ali as the formidable Lieutenant Rooney must have had her hands full keeping this team in order, and it was providential that the real villains fell almost by chance into their hands.
Naturally the police wouldn’t have dreamed of disturbing the dear old aunts in their good works. Early on in the play Simon Malpas, as poor old Mr Gibbs, accepted a glass of their special elderberry wine, but, as luck would have it, there was an interruption before he could drink. Right at the end, things went more smoothly; Stephen Clarke, playing Mr Witherspoon, was on the point of raising the merciful dose to his lips, when the lights went out and the play was over.
It was an amazing occasion. It seems unthinkable that we could actually laugh with delight at the spectacle of someone being given poison, and yet there was nothing cruel about it; there was no pretence this was anything but a harmless charade. Even more surprising was the fact the director, Bill Risebero, had brought the whole cast to that pitch of performance with only four rehearsals in two short weeks.