Center Rep, the resident theater company at Walnut Creek’s Lesher Center for the Arts, recently announced that its new season will kick off in September with “Arsenic and Old Lace.”
In today’s Bay Area theater scene, a hotbed of identity politics and LGBTQ+ representation, news of the umptillionth suburban production of a 1939 comedy about murderous spinster aunties doesn’t immediately induce goosebumps.
But Matt M. Morrow, Center Rep’s new artistic director — who previously held the same position at Diversionary, San Diego’s nationally recognized queer theater — says he’s cracked open the old chestnut and found new inspiration.
“‘Arsenic’ has long been a favorite of mine,” said Morrow in a recent interview with the Bay Area Reporter. “I read it in high school as I was discovering theater and realizing what a safe space it could be for a queer kid growing up in central Florida.”
Indeed, for many queer theater afficionados, high school and community theater productions of playwright Joseph Kesselring’s grisly-but-ticklish romp served as gateways to thespianism.
But the show is among a passel of 20th-century American classics that we’ve largely left by the wayside, gaywise: “Our Town” isn’t our town. “You Can’t Take It with You,” is a far cry from “with it.” Harvey the rabbit’s invisibility does diddly for queer visibility.
Queer view mirror
Last year, while preparing for his debut production at Center Rep, Morrow reread the script of “Arsenic and Old Lace.”
“The text really held up,” he said. “It’s still very funny. But another thing that really struck me was that the reason these old ladies can get away with murder is because nobody is able to see them for who they truly are. People are blinded by their assumptions. And then I realized that this is true throughout the play, about every character.
“You think you know someone and then suddenly you discover something new about them and you’re like, ‘Oh, you’re not at all who I thought you were.’ Well how queer is this? Who knows more about hidden identities than the queer community?’ So, I thought, ‘Let’s turn the play on its head a little bit and invite an intersectional queer cast and creative team to explore this material and see how it can thrive anew.”
“I don’t want to share any spoilers, but I think folks will be delightfully surprised by our take on it. We’re honoring the intentions of the playwright, but also taking a contemporary queer lens to it. And we’re telling the story with a lot of joy and fun.”
New season, fresh vision
Morrow’s pink-tinged spin on the tried-and-true “Arsenic and Old Lace” exemplifies the approach with which Center Rep, operated by the city of Walnut Creek, is addressing its evolving audience.
Founded in 1968, Center Rep is one of the Bay Area’s oldest operating theater companies (The Berkeley Rep started that same year, and A.C.T. just three years earlier). In recent years, what was once its predominantly white and relatively conservative local constituency has shifted, becoming younger and more diverse.
The pandemic had a notable impact on demographics, as former urbanites were freed from requirements to report to office headquarters every day.
“We need to embrace the people who have been relocating to this region, while at the same time honoring the people who have been here for a long time,” said Morrow. “Inclusion is the name of the game.”
That perspective is clear in the rest of Center Rep’s forthcoming 2024-2025 season which includes works that share the themes in “Arsenic and Old Lace” of intergenerational relationships (Queer Broadway vet Sara Porkalob’s solo musical “Dragon Lady,” inspired by her Filipina grandmother; and “Happy Pleasant Valley,” a comedic world premiere in which an internet influencer helps solve a series of murders in her grandmother’s senior living facility.
The company’s other productions in the year ahead include “Froggy” a tech-infused graphic-novel style adventure; a production of “The Roommate” arriving quick on the heels of the play’s Broadway debut later this month (The New York cast of Mia Farrow and Patti LuPone will, alas, not be heading west); and, yes, “A Christmas Carol,” because what would community theater be without it?
