Can there by anyone who doesn't appreciate the warm sepia glow of old time radio broadcasts? Of course, many favorite films from the 1930s and 1940s provide a similar feeling of nostalgia, but their images make a different experience. An old-time radio broadcast was magic because it came right into your home and into your head. Millions of Americans shared the experience of being, literally, "the radio audience" -- from audire, Latin, "to listen."
Those recordings and films remain enshrined in American memory, in part because of the portrayal of a simpler America -- one where folks were decent, did their duty, and agreed that America was headed for a brighter day, no matter how difficult the present circumstances. One proof of that mythic permanence in the American consciousness: this happy little warm kaleidoscope of a musical play evokes Christmastime in 1942 at a rundown radio studio in New York City. The play premiered in late 1979 -- 28 years ago.
Director Jennifer McKenna and the Wimberley Players do a fine job of creating the story, which starts slowly as the radio players arrive, chat, bicker and joke. This is a big cast -- 13 players and seven musicians -- and most of them are onstage throughout. That requires a lot of blocking and a lot of concentration, helped out by the superbly designed and finished set. The theatre audience becomes the studio audience, responding appropriately to the applause signs. They get involved in all those secondary stories and relationships unfolding behind the folks currently talking into the big old clunky microphones down front.
present The 1940s Radio Hour by Walton Jones Feb. 12 - March 7, 2010
It is December 1942, and our troops overseas are listening to the radio for news and entertainment from back home. The 1940’s Radio Hour, written by Walton Jones, is opening at the Wimberley Playhouse February 12, is a nostalgic musical about a radio broadcast – but this time you, the playgoers, are the actual audience.
Reminiscent of the setting of the recent film, A Prairie Home Companion, the play shows how a radio broadcast is put together. Only this time the music is not country, but favorite old ballads from the 40’s – “Kalamazoo,” “Blue Moon, “Ain’t She Sweet?” “Blues in the Night,” “You Go to My Head,” “Boogie Woogie Bugle Boy,” and many others. The music will be presented onstage by a small orchestra consisting of bass (Guy Ben Moshe), trumpet (Sean Palmer), trombone (Tom Van Tassel), drums (John King), piano (Robert FitzGerald), saxophone (Robert Eaton) and tenor sax (Donna Heath).
The 1940’s Radio Hour is directed by Jennifer McKenna, new to the Wimberley Playhouse but known in Austin theatre (Crimes of the Heart at City Theatre and The Diaries of Adam and Eve at the Baker Theatre).
Melodrama meets country rock band and invites beer drinkers to interrupt the whole thing at will with popcorn, catcalls, and even, on one particularly wild night, someone's shoe thrown from the audience.
Dr. Dave my retired college professor friend and I paid for the Wednesday night VIP seats, only there weren't any. We were kindly removed from the high table next to the stage, which turned out to be the location for those long-legged cowgirls, but there was still time to nab our front row seats. We did get our complimentary beer glasses with logo and the two beer tickets each, so we had little cause to complain on that account.
Let's look at a couple of the key elements.
Melodrama: a theatrical art form performed in small towns, church halls, saloons and theatres across the country, particularly but not exclusively in the 19th century. Typically, a simple story with a beleaguered, right-thinking young hero, a virginal heroine with heart of gold regularly threatened by a black-hearted villain with loss of her maidenhead, loss of the family farm, and loss of everything else of value. The playing style is broad. The characters are stereotypes. Frequently, the actors turn to address the audience in character, exaggerating emotions with a complicit wink. Everyone knows that Virtue Will Triumph.
Country Rock: Amplified, very loud guitar-based up-tempo music, featuring a full and active drum set and perhaps an amplified fiddle. Thrumming base guitar is a must. Words and lyrics appear to be optional, because you cannot hear them over the roar of the music, anyway. Read more at AustinLiveTheatre.com . . . .
Benjamin Wright had never written a play before so he took the world’s best advice on, well, the world’s best advice on just about everything, K.I.S.S.: Keep It Simple, Stupid.
He took on the world’s classic struggle: good versus evil and approached it from theater’s most classic format: the melodrama. He utilized classic haracterizations, the Snidely Whiplash and Dudley Do Right archetypes of cops and robbers and added some alluringcowgirls and thus Lonestar, Texas: A Popcorn Throwing Rock Country Musical was born. It debuted at his alma mater, University of California at Los Angeles five years ago when he was still an undergrad.
“A lot of people came,” Wright tells us, “and threw a lot of popcorn.” Normally, projectiles are the last things a neophyte playwright wants hurled at his debut. Certainly praise is preferable but as anyone who’s read the title of this article can tell, this performance is designed for popcorn throwing. And yet, while the advent of castingfood pellets at the cast was considered a success for five years, Wright is upping the stakes. “For an audience in Austin, we needed higher standards.”
Strike the musical vamp, dim the lights, hold your breath, and cue theVestige Group.
The Vestige Group presents Lonestar, Texas: A Popcorn Throwing Rock Country Musical
Book, Music and Lyrics by Vestige company member Benjamin Wright Directed by Susie Gidseg and Jen Brown
Friday, November 6- Saturday, November 21 Runs Wednesdays - Saturdays at 8 pm at The United States Art Authority Ages 21 and up only. Street parking only.
In a Snidely Whiplash/Dudley Do Right story that takes place in a Texan trailer park town, we meet a lecherous Texas Ranger who turns out not to be so rangerly. We meet a misunderstood youth just trying to escape his life in Lonestar. Let's not forget the damsel in distress and a whole mob of sexy cowgirls.
Lonestar, Texas: A Popcorn Throwing Rock Country Musical is a whimsical tale about the dark and depraved places one will go when forced to survive in the confines of a decaying small town. We'll leave the judgments of good and evil up to the audience who will be fully armed with beer and popcorn. So, saddle up for a rockin' trip to Lonestar, Texas.
Gorilla Man plays in a hang-loose theatre space Thursdays through Saturdays. The guys at the Creekside Lounge are more used to your typical 6th & 7th street music scene than to the romping of thespians, but they were good natured about hosting the show.
I arrived right at the posted time of 7:30 a.m., and I went directly into the bar. They directed me to the apparently unheated space next door, where some twenty folding chairs were set up in front of a bandstand. Director Susie Gidseg welcomed me aboard, and I joined the mostly college age crowd gathering there. The bartender eventually showed up and amicably sold me a Real Ale for just $2.50, so I was ready to go. I even took off my wool cap and later in the evening I unzipped my leather jacket.
The 3-person band led by Henna Chou showed up promptly, wearing white shirts, suspenders and fedoras, along with narrator Spencer Driggers. They launched into the impossibly nutty musical story of Billy, the 14-year-old boy who discovers that puberty for him means waking up with abundant fur growing on his hands and other parts of his body. “Mom! What’s going on??”
