71 pages • 2 hours read
Joseph KesselringArsenic and Old Lace
Fiction | Play | Adult | Published in 1941A modern alternative to SparkNotes and CliffsNotes, SuperSummary offers high-quality Study Guides with detailed chapter summaries and analysis of major themes, characters, and more. For select classroom titles, we also provide Teaching Guides with discussion and quiz questions to prompt student engagement.
Act IIIAct Summaries & Analyses
Act III, Scene 1 Summary
Later that night, Abby and Martha, dressed in funeral regalia and holding hymnals, try to stop Jonathan and Einstein from burying Mr. Spenalzo. Martha loudly proclaims that she will “not have our cellar desecrated” (69). As they fight, Mortimer returns to the house, telling them he brought Teddy’s signed commitment papers. He plans to frame Teddy for the murders so that Abby and Martha are protected from punishment. Abby and Martha vehemently reject this plan, as their main concern is forcing Jonathan out and telling the authorities about Mr. Spenalzo. Mortimer notes that if the police find Mr. Spenalzo, they will find Mr. Hoskins and the other bodies. The sisters remain steadfast, and tell Mortimer that if Jonathan, Einstein, and Mr. Spenalzo are still in the house in the morning, they will call the police. Mortimer promises to remove them.
Jonathan and Einstein return to the living room after burying Mr. Spenalzo. Abby and Martha insist that Jonathan digs Spenalzo up and tell him that Mortimer promised they would be out in the morning. This enrages Jonathan, who swears to kill Mortimer right then and there. He tells Einstein that he wants to use the “Melbourne method,” which is long, painful, and requires special equipment. Mortimer, completely oblivious to this plotting, is upstairs with Teddy. He tells Teddy that he has a “proclamation” for him, but Teddy refuses to sign the commitment papers unless he is in his “signing clothes” (74).
Einstein, knowing the implications of the Melbourne method, intercepts Mortimer and warns him to leave. Mortimer, thinking he is still trying to force him out of the house, instructs Einstein to leave before the police come for Jonathan. Each tries to warn the other of impending trouble until Einstein asks Mortimer if “those plays [he sees] teach [him] anything” (74). Mortimer, intrigued by Einstein’s remark, begins telling him about the play he saw before they arrived. In this play, the supposedly smart protagonist refuses to flee a house infested with murderers despite knowing he is in danger. At this moment, Jonathan ties Mortimer to a chair and begins to prepare for the Melbourne method, despite continued protest from Einstein. They are interrupted by Teddy blowing his bugle.
The sound of the bugle attracts O’Hara, who admonishes Jonathan for letting Teddy have his bugle so late in the evening. Jonathan hastily promises O’Hara that it won’t happen again, and tries to shoo him out of the house. Before O’Hara can leave, he notices Mortimer, still tied to the chair. Einstein explains that Mortimer tied himself up to mimic what he saw in the play earlier that evening. O’Hara takes this as an invitation to begin explaining the plot of his play.
Act III, Scene 2 Summary
As day breaks in the Brewster home, O’Hara is still exuberantly describing his play. Mortimer is still tied up, Jonathan is sound asleep, and Einstein is half awake in a drunken stupor. Einstein hears a knock on the door, and realizes there are more officers arriving.
Officers Brophy and Klein enter the house, and tell O’Hara the entire precinct was looking for him after he failed to report to the station. They free Mortimer from his bind and tell him that Teddy is too disruptive and needs to be sent away. Mortimer tells them that Jonathan is in the house, and introduces him as his brother that ran away. A panicked Jonathan tells Brophy and Klein that his aunts have 13 bodies in the cellar, and offers to lead them there. Klein scoffs, and ridicules Jonathan for looking “like Boris Karloff” (81). Jonathan, enraged, attempts to strangle Klein. Brophy intervenes and hits Jonathan in the head, knocking him out.
Lieutenant Rooney, the supervising officer of the local precinct, arrives to collect Teddy. He sees Jonathan’s body and asks if he is the one responsible for all the noise. Klein tells him that Jonathan tried to kill him after being compared to Karloff. He also mentions Jonathan’s story about the bodies in the cellar. Lieutenant Rooney tells Klein that Jonathan is a wanted escapee from an Indiana prison, and chastises them for falling for his story about the hidden bodies.
Teddy arrives and affirms that there are 13 bodies of “Yellow Fever victims” in the cellar (83). Mortimer tells Rooney that he has sanitarium commitment papers that he signed as Teddy’s next of kin. Mortimer begins to address the 13 bodies, but Rooney brushes him off, telling him it seems to be a baseless rumor.
Elaine arrives shortly after with Mr. Witherspoon, the Superintendent of Happy Dale Sanitarium. She is still upset with Mortimer, and curtly tells him that Mr. Witherspoon is there to inspect Teddy. Mortimer states that plans have changed, and that Teddy needs to be taken to Happy Dale immediately. Posing as a presidential aide, Mortimer tells Teddy that his term in office is over and that Mr. Witherspoon will be his guide for a trip to Africa.
Abby and Martha awake to a small crowd in their living room. Mortimer lets them know that Teddy officially committed himself and will be going to Happy Dale. The aunts are horrified, insisting that Teddy stay at home until they die and asking to go with him if he cannot. Witherspoon and Rooney intervene, saying that Teddy might be disruptive with his bugle and rumors about the bodies in the cellar. The confused aunts say that there are indeed 13 victims in the cellar–they clarify that Mr. Spenalzo belongs to Jonathan, but the rest are their “gentlemen” (87). They say that finding them would be easy, as all the graves are marked.
Their insistence about the bodies causes Rooney to reconsider his previous dismissal. Mortimer suggests that Abby and Martha be allowed to commit themselves to Happy Dale, and Witherspoon says they can do so with the signature of a doctor. Einstein, who is trying to sneak out amidst the commotion, is cornered by Mortimer and forced to sign. Rooney tells them to look out for Jonathan’s accomplice, a German man posing as a doctor. He thanks Einstein for his help, and Einstein is allowed to leave.
As Abby and Martha prepare to pack their belongings and move to Happy Dale, they tell Mortimer they must share one final secret with him and Elaine: he is not a legitimate Brewster, and was adopted from one of their employees. To their surprise, Mortimer is overjoyed, rejoicing “I’m a bastard!” (91) He happily leaves to eat breakfast with Elaine, their relationship restored. In the meantime, Jonathan is carried out to a police car while smugly telling the sisters that their score is an even 12 to 12.
Abby and Martha offer to prepare Witherspoon a meal as a send off to their house. He refuses, and begins telling them about his commitment to Happy Dale. He is so committed to his role as Superintendent that he has no family on the premises and very few friends. As the curtain closes, the sisters offer him a glass of elderberry wine.
Act III Analysis
Act III sees many of Kesselring’s previous comedic motifs heightened to absurd levels as the play reaches its climactic confrontation with the police. Kesselring facilitates this escalation by splitting Act III into two scenes, one later in the night, and one the next morning. Having seen certain comedic moments played out in previous scenes, the audience can easily picture how the family antics completely skyrocketed over the course of a few hours. Kesselring carefully paces his play, establishing certain beats, or discrete emotional moments, early on, and then repeating them frequently enough that both audiences and readers can reliably expect their natural conclusions. Repetition and escalation are also classic elements of dramatic comedies, as established patterns allow for humorous variations that both fulfill and subvert audience expectations.
One of these repeated beats is the oblivious nature of the Brooklyn police officers. At the beginning of the play, Officers Brophy and Klein discuss the fact that the Brewster home has come up in connection with a variety of missing persons cases, but brush it off (10). This culminates with a disastrous visit from Officer O’Hara. O’Hara, who arrives at the Brewster house to address noise complaints about Teddy, has multiple opportunities to capture both Jonathan and the sisters but is too preoccupied with his own theatrical pursuits. When he returns later in the night after a particularly loud bugle from Teddy, only to find Jonathan and Einstein standing over a tied-up Mortimer, he can only focus on himself, saying: “Hey! You stood me up. I waited an hour at Kelly’s for you” (78). Upon questioning Einstein about Mortimer’s situation, he mentions that “He was explaining the play he saw tonight–that’s what happened to the fella in the play” (78). This is obviously a ludicrous justification, but it works on the self-absorbed O’Hara, and references the meta-theatrical joke in which the play Mortimer describes does bear striking similarity to Arsenic and Old Lace itself.
The contradictions within key characters are also taken to new heights. In the midst of a heated argument about Mr. Spenalzo, Martha exclaims, “I will not have our cellar desecrated!” (69). The idea that Mr. Spenalzo is “desecrating” the space stems from her feeling that a “stranger” will be buried there. In other words, Martha is fine with the inclusion of anybody that she had a hand in killing. At this point, the audience is well acquainted with Abby and Martha’s odd protectiveness over their gentlemen. While this outburst is expected, it is also arguably more outrageous than anything either sister has previously said in connection to a victim, and therefore even more humorous.
Act III is also the height of Kesselring’s use of dramatic irony. At the end of the act, Lieutenant Rooney repeatedly brushes off claims from Jonathan, Teddy, and the sisters about the 13 bodies in the cellar. When talking to Mortimer about Teddy’s confirmation of the bodies, Rooney says “Yeah–yeah–the thirteen bodies in the cellar! It ain’t enough that all the neighbors are afraid of him […] but can you imagine what would happen if that cock-eyed story about thirteen bodies in the cellar got around?” (84). At this point, the audience is well aware that the 13 bodies are truly present–they’ve spent the entirety of the play watching the Brewsters squabble over them. Rooney is not just oblivious to the bodies’ existence; he outright refuses to investigate them and immediately dismisses them as the ravings of a madman. Dramatic irony allows the audience to be in on the joke and ensures that it lands. They can laugh with Mortimer while laughing at Rooney, and Kesselring humorously resolves the most high-stakes action of the play with the officer’s understated dismissal. Kesselring then repeats this joke structure, and Rooney dismisses Einstein, implied to be the same imposter of a German doctor that Rooney is searching for.
Kesselring ends the play with a false resolution, freeing Mortimer from his family anxiety by revealing that Mortimer is not biologically related to the Brewsters. However, immediately following this revelation, and Mortimer’s happy exit with Elaine, Kesselring suggests that Mortimer’s escapades are not likely to end as Abby and Martha find their next victim in Mr. Witherspoon.
