originally written for Radio Days
"We're on in five, four, three, two, ---." Those words send a surge of excitement up the spine of any old radio show lover, knowing that what you're about to hear is live and untampered with all its impromptu imperfections. I have been a loyal listener of the old radio shows on KNX at 9:00 P.M. for years and admit some are brilliant while some are boring. THat's the problem you run into with today's audiences when you try to introduce them to old radio; they've become too sophisticated to enjoy them. A couple of weeks ago we were invited to attend a play of sorts, depicting a radio show being performed live in the 1940's. At the beginning trained actors deliver memorized lines as they play the behind the scenes characters showing the mayhem that goes on right before a show. And then the radio show itself started with most of the voices and sound effects created by volunteers from the audience. The women at the table next to us were the Foley artists, a relatively new term for the people who make the man made sound effects such as shoes walking, fist punching and so on. They probably had more fun than anyone with all their gizmos and gadgets. I played a thug and my wife read commercial and both enjoyed ourselves immensely.
The on-air story itself, titled For Love or mOney (starring everyone's favorite detective Jack Dobbs) was a sweetheart of a script. It had all the swagger and suspense of a Sam Spade story but without the drag and silliness of so many radio play scripts. No doubt the writer is from an earlier generation and understands something about timing and pauses and the importance of letting the imagination fill in the blanks. The audience-played portion of the evening was definitely the highilight and bulk of the event. But the "real" actors were to be commended as well, especially during the bit where one appears to ad lib (scripted) and fill in dead air space when another misses his cue and loses his place -- hilarious! The emcee Rawley Shields was a crowd favorite with a deep booming voice on air and a nasal high pitched nerd voice off air.As this show was conducted in a dinner theater environment, we were fed too. I was not looking forward to the meal, anticpating some sort of trendy fancy food, but was pleased as pudding to find that the food reflected the era as well. We had a choice of meatloaf or chicken pot pie, slices of Wonderbread, some sort of era-friendly Jello, salad and vegetables and Mom's apple pie, a la mode no less! Even if the show had been a dud I would've walked away a happy camper after that dinner.
All in all the event was a big success and I especially liked the staged Air Raid and Girl from Kalamazoo singalong conducted as they try to put things back together after a dog fight is heard, presumably over head. My entire table concurred and are all planning to come to the next radio show which we were told will be called Mistaken Indemnity with characters reminiscent of the Thin Man's Nick and Nora Charles. Unfortunately the show is not scheduled for quite some time, but that's all right, I waited thrity years for this show I suppose I can't wait a little longer for the next one. For tickets to the next show call the production company at (562) 856-3770.