Review: Arsenikkia ja vanhoja pitsejä

Hilarious old ladies

I wonder what it is that a man in the role of a woman makes you laugh, but a woman as a man rarely has the energy to amuse. This happened once again when Esko Roine and Asko Sarkola filled the big stage of the Helsinki City Theatre as Brewster’s old ladies. Joseph Kesselring’s black comedy Arsenic and Old Lace was a real Broadway hit in the 1940s.

The plot of the comedy classic is familiar from the film of the same name starring Gary Grant . Theatre critic Mortimer Brewster’s (Santeri Kinnunen) life is shaken when he discovers his aunts’ creepy secret. Aunts who engage in “charity” let unhappy people out of their days and are not even ashamed of their actions.

Under the direction of Neil Hardwick, old-fashioned theatre has been brought to the stage, in which the gloom of the outside world is forgotten. That is also needed.