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Two
Radio Plays by Ray Bradbury Downwind from
Gettysburg The Toynbee Convector Theatre West |
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Ray Bradbury is very easy with drama. The
circumscribed conventions of the stage suit him to a tee. Stage a radio drama
of his, put him in his element, a schoolboy in a Midwestern station. Have
some actors who know the business. The set is a modest one, revealing on
closer inspection its exactitude. An inflected back wall, bookcase with
scripts, door, clock, booth, microphones on stands, chair and table for the
narrator stage right, side table left with pitcher and glasses. The director
in his booth gives the signal, the ON AIR sign is lit and a red light bulb
over the door. The narrator (Malachi Throne) begins. There are two such men. One lived in
Argentina and wrote in the manner and style of his country. The other lives
in Los Angeles. Buenos Aires letters are of the city, we know the place
through them, and thence the existence of its inhabitants. L.A. is a very
museum style, rich and full in concentrated essences. John Bayes (Jay Gerber) has built an
audioanimatronic Abraham Lincoln, and William Henry Booth (Andrew Parker) has
shot it, the way he would crush a turtle in childhood. Bayes wouldn’t
harm a butterfly. Let there be no fame accorded the assassin, let him not
even speak of it, on pain of death. After intermission, the time machine. A
reporter, “heading south toward La Jolla” in his Dragonfly,
prepares to interview the inventor. ”I lied,” says the latter
(Ian Abercrombie). The malaise as he saw it of the Sixties, etc., provoked
him to it. Here are the great ages for your inspection. Oblivion and eternity
describe his fate. Christopher Thomas as the reporter works
his script with his hands, capturing the tone. Gerber and Throne understand
radio acting, the disembodied voice. Abercrombie walks through the part
effortlessly. The sustained drama of Downwind from
Gettysburg is played in counterpoint to its simple image. The Toynbee
Convector rises out of the theatrical circumstance into the real
strangeness of Bradbury’s universes. Los Angeles is a nervous town when it
comes to theater. Everywhere, no matter what the play, recorded sound effects
are not aligned with stage speech, they are too loud, too soft or not in the
right direction. Some of the actors tend to shout. The lighting is bright
though inartistically refuses to participate in the set, which is superb. As if this could matter when the thing is
put before you so expertly. |