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Arsenic and Old Lace by Joseph Kesselring
4.0

ABBY. His name's Hoskins - Adam Hoskins. That's really all I know about him - except that he's a Methodist.
MORTIMER. That's all you know about him? Well, what's he doing here? What happened to him?
MARTHA. He died.
MORTIMER. Aunt Martha, men don't just get into window seats and die.
ABBY. (Silly boy.) No, he died first.
MORTIMER. Well, how?
ABBY. Oh, Mortimer, don't be so inquisitive. The gentleman died because he drank some wine with poison in it.
MORTIMER. How did the poison get in the wine?
MARTHA. Well, we put it in wine because it's less noticeable - when it's in tea it has a distinct odor.


Sweet old ladies doing "charity work", a secret in the cellar, their nephew who thinks he's Theodore Roosevelt, Mortimer who's ready to have a nervous breakdown because of his aunts, a minister's daughter, other nephew who looks suspiciously like Boris Karloff (this nephew was actually played by Karloff on Broadway), and Dr. Einstein (not THAT Einstein).

A hilarious play that is great as a "snack read". Fun fact: I detest Frank Capra's films, but he did a great job with the adaptation. The casting is top notch as well. Peter Lorre and Cary Grant in the same movie? Yay!