The Innisfail Junior Senior High School Drama Club left audience members laughing with the well-delivered quick witted humour of the 1941 classic, Arsenic and Old Lace.
The Drama Club premiered the first weekend of their murder/comedy production and the high-energy performance was well suited for the budding actors and actresses.
The play features two elderly sisters who are famous in their Brooklyn neighbourhood for their good deeds. However the calm callous sisters and their mentally ill nephew who thinks he is Teddy Roosevelt, played by Eric Abraham, have more then a few skeletons in their closet.
The sisters Abby and Martha Brewster, played by Chelsea Lessard, and Hannah Hicks, become more and more interesting but stay calm and collected throughout the play as the plot reveals their secrets.
"I play the follower of the two aunts. When she tries to take charge she ends up messing things up. She is calm and quirky," said Hanna Hicks, of her character Martha.
The sisters other nephew, Mortimer, a theatre critic for the newspaper, acts as the only sane presence in the sea of insane people, said Logan Grabil, who plays Mortimer.
Mortimer spends most of the play trying to unravel all of the secrets of his family and trying to shield his fiancÈ Elaine, played by Staci Dunham, from the mayhem.
The plot really starts to get messy when a third nephew and his crazy doctor appear on the scene after recently escaping from a mental institution.
Johnathan Brewster, played by Trevor Dunham, and Dr. Einstein, played by Eric Duffy wreak havoc in the Brewster household to further agitate the already disturbed aunties.
The audience was kept on their toes with the twists and turns of the plot but was always kept entertained by the tasteful adult humour.
Although created by the students, the costumes and set looked professionally done setting the scene for the 1940s setting of the play.
Cast members rehearsed since the beginning of October and participants in the extra-curricular club said they felt pleased with their first performance.
"They have been so much fun. The thing about a drama club is you get students from every group that would not always be hanging out, come together here," said Rob Burton, the play director.
The rest of the cast included, Austis Morris, Austin Earnst, Daniel Thompson, Mitchell Peters, Richard Devine, Nicole Budinski, Zach Kennedy, and Erik Schaefer. Costumes were created by Fay Haggerty and Celine Gerber, front of house crew was Catriona Hicks, and the light operator was Felicia Glazer.
Additional performances will be held on February, 11th and 12th at 7 p.m. Tickets can be purchased at the Legman, the IHS office, or at the door.
