This has been especially tough on theatre, what with regular lockdowns, and social distancing rules. Theatre, a very intimate art form, managed to survive in the midst of it all, due to the spirit of the thespians who love it unconditionally. With mass vaccination drives and relaxed movement restrictions in recent times, theatre is once again making a comeback in the culture of Dhaka. And who better to stage that comeback besides Open Space Theatre.
The massively popular theatre troupe, known for recruiting actors from the audience of their stage performance, premiered a new play on February 11 after a long arduous wait. The play is titled “Arsenic And Old Lace” and it was written by American playwright Joseph Kesselring in 1939. The play is directed by Open Space Theatre's Founder and Director M Arifur Rahman.
Just like the previous two productions of Open Space Theatre, the set design was magnificent. In the case of “Arsenic And Old Lace” it is designed like a parlor of a mid-twentieth century Victorian household.
The parlor had comfortable couches on the left of the stage (audience perspective) and small table with chairs for guests on the right. The window to the very right of the stage was accompanied with a dresser, which also worked as a chest. There was a set of stairs at the very back of the stage. The left side leading to upper floors, and the right side had a door to a cellar. In front of the stairs, there was a nice set of showcase, containing crockeries and bottles. There was a set of door on the right side of the stage, but beyond the chest with the window, and it lead to the kitchen. And there was a door at the very left of the stage, beyond the couch, and it served as the principle point of entry or exit to the house. This is merely a skeleton of how the stage was designed. You will need to see it to appreciate the classy details given to this parlor to make it seem elegant, yet realistic.
The costumes of the cast were rich and reflective of the time in which the play was written. The spinster aunts of the play were wearing beautiful bodices, and the men were wearing suits that were in fashion in that time. Most noteworthy and amusing was the outfit of the Brewster brother who thought of himself as Teddy Roosevelt.
As for the play itself, well, it is dark humor in all its glory. The play is about a family of brothers and their aunts, who are called the Brewster family. There are two beautiful spinster aunts, who murder older gentlemen who are looking for lodging at their house, by serving wine laced with arsenic, strychnine and “a pinch of cyanide” to give them peace. The family also has three brothers; one who, as mentioned before, thinks of himself as Teddy Roosevelt and digs locks in the cellar for the Panama canal, another brother who is estranged from the family but appears suddenly with a plastic surgeon to drive the plot of the play, and lastly Mortimer Brewster, who is betrothed to Elaine, an over-eager bride-to-be who lives nearby.
How Mortimer deals with the insanity of discovering the murderous nature of his aunts, and the sudden arrival of his estranged brother Jonathan with Dr. Einstein, is what drives plot of the play. Every situation is made into a comedic farce by the characters featured in the play, as majority of them appear to have lost their marbles. The performance by the policemen is especially amusing. To find out what happens to the murderous aunts, poor Teddy, and the shady Jonathan, you must book tickets for the next staging of the play immediately.
The director of the play M Arifur Rahman plays character of Mortimer, and he plays it to perfection. To be honest, every actor plays their character to perfection, but the show was stolen by the spinster aunts. Founder and CEO of Open Space Theatre, Tisha Mahjabeen Chowdhury, play the role of aunt Abby. She is also the set designer and did the costumes for the play. Light Design was done by Dhiman Chandra Barman.
The cast of the play also featured Iftakhar Mahi, Raihan Ahmed Dip, Zakaria Khan Rony, Auvishek Bhadra, S Rahman, Ummay Marium, Zakaria Khan Rony, A S M Mosabbir Tanim, Hadi Akash, Ritwik Mahbub, Tahmid Suprav, Sharif M Tarik, and Johayer Mahtab Khan.
Open Space Theatre had three sold out shows in the first set of performance for Arsenic And Old Lace; two on Friday, February 11, and one on Saturday. More performances of this production is coming soon, and in order pre-book tickets for the show, one needs to follow the process on the posts given on Open Space Theatre’s Facebook page.
“Arsenic And Old Lace” was written to take people’s minds off the Second World War, and it proved to be massively popular with 1,444 performances starting in 1941. Founder and CEO of Open Space Theatre Tisha echoed a similar reason for bringing this play to the stage, “After the pandemic, we wanted to take people’s minds off all the suffering and sadness. We wanted to make them laugh. Hence, we decided on ‘Arsenic And Old Lace.’”
