Arsenic and Old Betty

What’s scarier (or more hilarious) than a couple of old ladies in the habit of poisoning their male boarders? If you answered Betty Buckley, you’re right (watch M. Knight Shyamalan’s The Happening–the woman is terrifying in it). If you’ve got a taste for real terror (and belly laughs), you’re in luck: Arsenic and Old Lace is showing and Betty Buckley has the lead role in this Dallas Theater Center production. The play–a black comedy farce–revolves around Mortimer Brewster’s discovery that crazy doesn’t just run in his family, it gallops. Between a couple of poison-happy sisters, a murderous brother who looks like Boris Karloff and another who thinks he’s Teddy Roosevelt, Mortimer has his hands full. And the poor guy was just about to get married. If you’ve never seen the play, you’re in for a treat. It’s funny in all the right places and considering Betty Buckley plays one of the batty murdering sisters and Tovah Feldshuh (the mother from Kissing Jessica Stein) is the other, you’re in for for a real treat when it plays the Kalita Humphreys Theater, 2400 Flora St, Tuesdays through Sundays through March 13. Tickets are $15 to $42. Call 214-526-8210 or visit dallastheatercenter.org for tickets and showtimes.

Tuesdays-Thursdays, 7:30 p.m.; Fridays, 8 p.m.; Saturdays, 2 & 8 p.m.; Sundays, 2 p.m.; Thu., March 3, 2 p.m. Starts: Feb. 15. Continues through March 13, 2011