Category: Radio

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". . . between the zodiac and Orson Welles": A Play Scheduled for Pearl Harbor

Well, it wasn’t exactly business as usual on this day, 7 December, back in 1941. Mind you, lucre-minded broadcasters tried hard to keep the well-oiled machinery of commercial radio running. There were soap operas and there was popular music, interrupted in a fashion rehearsed by “The War of the Worlds,” by updates about the developments of the attack on Pearl Harbor (previously commemorated here). Unlike on the day now known as 9/11, when advertising came to an immediate standstill to make way for propaganda and regular (that is, commercial) programming ceased for hours and days to come, radio back then was slow to adapt. There was no precedent; and, having ignored the signs of the time, not much preparation.

Minding the business of its sponsors, broadcasters had no master plan for a response to the masterminds behind the plans for the master race and its allies. It was, however briefly, overmastered; or flummoxed, at least. For an industry relying on minute timing, the attack and subsequent declaration of war were most inopportune. Big business was, for the most part, not behind a war that would translate into major financial losses.

Until that day, broadcasters had counted on being inconsequential; it was the commerce stimulated by the sales talk punctuating the chatter and musical interludes proffered “in the public interest,” that mattered.

The Screen Guild was fortunate. After previous crowd pleasers like “Penny Serenade” and “If You Could Only Cook,” the Gulf Motor Oil sponsored Hollywood-rehash factory had scheduled a play that just fit the bill. For that fateful night it had prepared a live production of Norman Corwin’s “Between Americans,” previously staged in June 1941. “By one of those mystic and infallible arrangements between the zodiac and Orson Welles,” the playwright would recall, this broadcast was the

first uninterrupted half-hour on the CBS network after the bombing of Pearl Harbor. All afternoon the news had come pounding in—comment, short-wave pickups, rumors, analyses, flashes, bulletins. Programs of all kinds were either brushed aside or so riddled by special announcements that they made no sense. But by 7:30 PM EST all available news on the situation was exhausted, and the Screen Guild, which had long ago scheduled “Between Americans” and Welles for this date, was given clear air.

According to Corwin, the greatest living American radio dramatist, indeed the greatest radio playwright of any time anywhere (whose 97th birthday I celebrated here), the “staggering news of the previous hours made the show far more exciting than it had any right to be.” The studio audience reacted enthusiastically, a response the playwright attributed to the moment, rather than to anything of moment in his play.

A war only four hours old is an emotion, an intoxication, a bewilderment [. . .]. People felt reassured by it. They heard the piece as a statement of faith. They were moved; they laughed extra loud; they applauded like mad when the show was over. I am certain it was Pearl Harbor that made the show so electric that night, and not so much the work of Welles, Corwin, or Harry Ackerman, who directed it.

“Between Americans” had not been prepared for the day; indeed, it had been produced five months earlier, with actor Ray Collins (whose voice Welles regarded as the best in the business) as narrator. According to Corwin, who is none too fond of the play, there were some 22,000 requests for scripts and rebroadcasts. No wonder, with lines like these:

You ever asked yourself what America means to you? Does it mean 1776? “Columbia, the Gem of the Ocean”? Big business? The Bill of Rights? Uncle Sam? Chances are it means none of these things. Chances are it means something very personal to each of you. Something close to your heart, which you’d miss like the very blazes if you were stranded abroad. It might have nothing to do with quotes from Madison or Acts of Congress. It might be just the feeling of crisp autumns in New England and the smell of burning leaves. It might be the memory of the way they smooth off the infield between the games of a double-header. It might be a thing as small as your little finger [that is, a cigarette].

“Big business” and personal memories. They merge at the moment of listening. Big business counted on that.

The 7 December 1941 program is a fascinating record of an industry coming to terms with the role it was called upon to play. The commercial structure remained remarkably intact; but the play was being shrewdly exploited as “one of the most timely programs ever heard on the Gulf Screen Guild Theater:

Broadcast at any time, we believe this program would make every American’s heart beat a little faster, make him hold his head just a little higher. But since the tragic and foreboding news that came today, this program, “Between Americans,” now becomes an American Odyssey. In just a moment, our story will begin.

“But first,” listeners had to hear the words from the sponsor, who had this topical message prepared for the occasion:

Right. And here is an easy way to change from a pessimist into an optimist. If you are wondering now how long you may have to keep your present car, and wondering too if it will last, if it will stay in good condition, just look on the bright side of the picture. Remember, when you give the wearing parts of your car good protection that helps it stay young and act young a long, long time. So, give your automobile the modern method of lubrication . . .

Yes, radio was a well-oiled machine . . . until the rationing of its parts set in.

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Open a New Door . . .

Well, this is St. Nicholas Day. Traditionally, it is the day on which children in Germany (among whom I once numbered) put their hands in their boots to find out whether Saint Nick, passing by overnight, left anything within. Preferably candy, and, given the repository, preferably wrapped. Now, it has been several decades since last I observed the custom. These days, as an every so slightly overweight atheist with somewhat of a passion for boots, I would be more pleased to find my footwear polished.

There are still a few holiday customs I like to observe. I shall miss the annual display of tinsel, since we won’t be home long enough to enjoy the spectacle. So, Ms. Colbert, generally to be found up a tree around this time, is going to dangle elsewhere this season.

At least I won’t have to do without the miniature thrills of opening those little doors (or Türchen). This year, my Advent calendar (which I used to make but never get for myself) arrived just in time for the first of those twenty-four minute inspections, a welcome series of opening acts at a time when you are supposed to be closing the door on a rapidly expiring year. How surprised and delighted I was to be receiving a calendar featuring old Krtek, the mole that dug up childhood memories a few months ago on my trip to Prague. How fortunate I am to have a best friend (and fellow web journalist) who remembers . . .

Since this is also the 107th birthday of the aforementioned Agnes Moorehead (1900-1974), radio’s First Lady of Suspense (heard on this day, 6 December, as the “Useful Information Lady” in Orson Welles’s Hello Americans), it is an opportune time to return to my journal and my favorite subject . . . so-called old-time radio drama. The last few days have been rather busy and none too inspired. I did not get to pick a Dickens novel, which I enjoy reading around this time. Nor did I manage to follow this season’s twenty-part radio adaptation of Dombey and Son. The serial is still being broadcast and you may catch up with this week’s chapters at the BBC broadcast archive.

Until my departure for New York City next Friday, I am going to listen to a few recordings of seasonal broadcasts from the 1930s, ’40s, or early 50s (as I have done before). Now, Ms. Moorehead would have made a wonderful Scrooge. Never mind that, as The Mayor of the Town‘s Dickensian housekeeper Marilly, she was still heard humming “O Tannenbaum” well past New Year’s (21 January 1948, to be exact); but, unlike so many actors before and after, foremost among them her costar, the actor pictured in the previous entry into this journal (and heard here doing his celebrated impersonation of Dickens’s old grouch, however incongruously, on the same program [24 December 1942]), the former Margot Lane to Welles’s Shadow was never cast in the role. And Susan Lucci was? As Krtek might say, “Bah, hummock!”

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Is That a Barrymore Behind the Mike?

Well, it isn’t C. B. DeMille, folks. Those tuning in to the Lux Radio Theater on this day, 30 November, back in 1936, were in for a surprise. DeMille, host and nominal producer of the program, briefly addressed the audience from New York, rather than uttering his customary “Greetings from Hollywood.” For the “first time” since taking on his role, he was going to “join the Lux Radio Theater‘s legion of listeners” instead. There was just enough time for him to mention his latest picture, The Plainsman, which he was currently previewing coast to coast, and to announce his substitute: “The show you and I are about to hear has been prepared by one who is certainly on speaking terms with our microphone: Lionel Barrymore. To one so familiar, and so beloved, the mention of his name is the most glowing introduction I could give.”

Barrymore was on hand to ring down the sonic curtain and narrate “Polly of the Circus,” a sentimental comedy starring Loretta Young in the role played on screen by the all too infrequently mentioned Marion Davies (whose Lux anniversary yesterday, the 1937 production of “Peg o’ My Heart” I neglected to acknowledge). Barrymore assured the audience that he did not intend to take the place of the celebrated director: “That, as you and I both know, is something no one could do. I am here, anyway, highly flattered and slightly uneasy, hoping to keep things in order until Miss DeMille, er, Mr. DeMille resumes the reins next week.”

The busiest of the Barrymores in broadcasting had no reason to be coy or ill at ease. He had previously been heard on the program and, beginning in 1942, would delight listeners as star of his own dramatic radio series, The Mayor of the Town. Dr. Kildare went on the air in 1950. Subsequently, he served as host of the drama anthology Hallmark Playhouse. Now, the producers and sponsors of a live show like Lux may very well have felt uneasy to let go of their star voice for the first time. The show had to go on.

Exactly five years later, on 30 November 1941, the producers of Behind the Mike suggested an answer. On that program, dedicated to the broadcasting industry and its players, listeners once again heard Barrymore … but the voice was that of impersonator Arthur Boran, who also offered his best Eddie Cantor. Which makes me wonder: just how many of those famous voices on the air are mere vocal illusions?

My own voice will be heard less frequently on broadcastellan next month, as I am going to pay return visits to New York and London, from which locations I shall only occasionally file my reports. Sorry, no Barrymores.

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“Yak”: Listening to the Chief of the Daredevils, on His Birthday

Well, talk about stunt broadcasting. I am listening to Daredevils of Hollywood, an obscure series of radio documentaries of sorts, syndicated and transmitted in the United States during the late 1930s. Daredevils celebrates the achievements of those doubles who took it on the chin or jumped off cliffs for the likes of John Wayne and Clark Gable. Chief among them was Yakima Canutt (a tribute page devoted to whom you will find here). Former rodeo star Enos Edward “Yak” Canutt was born on this day, 29 November, back in 1894 (or 1895, according to the Internet Movie Database; or 1896, if the Wikipedia is to be relied upon). His seven decades spanning resume as a double, stunt coordinator and second unit director includes many of the films I have enjoyed over the years, blockbusters like In Old Chicago (1937), the to Canutt very painful Boomtown (1940), and the seminal Stagecoach (1939), a kind of fast moving Grand Hotel on wheels. Canutt did “any stunts except those with animals,” all horses aside.

Now, I am fairly allergic to tumbleweed and, however partial to whiskey, generally avoid the Republic saloon scene; I am more of a Paramount kind of guy with a soft spot for Warner Bros., even though one unlikely Texas Lady (star of the aforementioned Boom Town) is prominently displayed in my room, locally known as the Claudette Colbert Museum. No matter how many I might have pulled in my lifetime, I have little to say about stunts other than what I learned from Lee Majors and his sidekick Howie in The Fall Guy.

After the death of the Academy Awarded stuntman in 1986, Alistair Cooke devoted a “Letter from America” to his life and art, convinced that not one in ten thousand listeners had ever heard of Canutt, no matter how often his name had appeared in the credits of Hollywood films as diverse as Gone With the Wind and Ben-Hur. The fate of the stuntman, a profession largely done in by CGI, was to remain invisible. So, it is hardly a surprise that there is no mention of “Yak” in my undergraduate Stagecoach essay “How the West Was One.” That is where the radio comes in; it hands me the candle to put on King Canutt’s cake.

Programs like Daredevils of Hollywood are the Wikipedia of the pre-digital age. They are just as reliable or maligned; but they are far more intimate in the gossip they whisper in your ears. They introduce me to so much I would have otherwise missed out on, so much I am apt to overlook rather than look up. How thrilling it is to hear the voices of those behind the scenes. And, as it turns out, Canutt was quite the storyteller.

The script permitting, he sure could, you know, yak about the “tragic,” the “funny” and the “sometimes annoying” aspects of his work—if only the announcer had not felt obliged to cut him off for the sake of commerce. Then again, Canutt knew all about commerce. He risked his life for it.

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A Soundtrack for the Silent Era

Well, I am all ears again. After the visual assault described in the previous post, this constitutes a welcome reining in of the senses. Not that the experience is a tranquil one. I am listening to the sounds of war . . . the Great War. Presented by BBC security correspondent Frank Gardner, “The Sounds of Flanders” (available here until 30 November), introduces listeners to a collection of rare phonograph recordings produced for the domestic market in Britain, the “first form of saleable audio propaganda”—patriotic speeches, rousing songs, and soundstaged re-enactments of warfare.

The recordings, which include dramatizations of an air raid on an English coastal town and the attack on the RMS Lusitania made just weeks after the ship’s sinking, were unearthed by broadcast historian Tim Crook, who calls them the earliest surviving example of audio drama produced in Britain.

Not all of it was produced for the local market; apparently, some of these recordings were intended for an American audience in an attempt to rally support for the Great War. It clearly anticipates the shortwave transmissions of World War II, as described in Charles J. Rolo’s 1942 study Radio Goes to War (of which I am fortunate to have added to my library above copy signed by its author). As Rolo put it,

[radio]went to war on five continents shortly after the Nazi Party came to power in Germany. In eight years it has been streamlined from a crude propaganda bludgeon into the most powerful single instrument of political warfare the world has ever known. More flexible in use and infinitely stronger in emotional impact than the printed word, as a weapon of war waged psychologically radio has no equal.

According to Rolo, “Nazi tacticians, unhampered by the deadweight of outdated traditions, had taken to heart the lessons of the last war and were elaborating for the future a strategy of war waged psychologically.” As “The Sounds of Flanders” suggests, those strategies may well have originated in the United Kingdom, even though the audio recordings were apparently not made by any branch of the government (a point in need of clarification).

As in the case of the electrophone wirecasts from the London stage during the reign of Queen Victoria (discussed here), those phono-graphic records antecede the first experimentations in broadcast theatricals, which began in the early 1920s.

Programs like “The Sounds of Flanders” help to restore the soundtrack for a generation that today is largely thought of as silent.

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Kaboom! Kerplunk! Ka-ching!

Well, being that I am off to Cardiff on Thursday to see the touring Young Vic production of Hergé’s Adventures of Tintin, I thought I’d make this serial and comic strip week here on broadcastellan. “Blistering barnacles” and “Cushion footed quadrupeds”! I am smack in the middle of the “Funny Book War” as staged by Michael Chabon in The Amazing Adventures of Kavalier & Clay; and even though my comic treats were generally of not of the superheroic kind (to which this recent portrait attests), comics are very much on my mind.

It so happens that the aforementioned (and by now controversial) boy reporter and his creator are also the subject of the BBC Radio 4 documentary “Tintin’s Guide to Journalism” (available online here until 23 November). In this broadcast, which also features the voice of Tintin creator Hergé, journalist Mark Lawson investigates cases of real-life reporters who were inspired to enter their profession by books like King Ottokar’s Sceptre. In my case, comics simply inspired imitation.

The Germans are said to have papered the way to the comics with the picture books of Wilhelm Busch (Max und Moritz), which is where I started out as well. After graduating from the Katzenjammer Kids inspiring Max und Moritz, I became an avid comic collector, spending virtually all of my Taschengeld (distributed as it was back then in Deutsch Marks) on weeklies like Fix und Foxi.

Sigh! My family could not afford to have me shod there; but I still sneaked into the Salamander shoe stores to browse just long enough to grab my copy of Lurchi, another treat being the stories of Mecki the hedgehog I clipped from the pages of the German radio and television magazine Hörzu. More inclined toward the buzz of Maya the Bee than to the “THWIP!” of Spiderman, my comic book phase ended as I entered my teenage years. Make that my “comic reading phase,” since I kept drawing them. My own creations often mocked those among my pubescent schoolmates who kept up with the exploits of guys like Superman or The Phantom.

It was only after I graduated from the comics that I discovered a connection between cartoon bubbles and comic speech, the kind of connection to which the Americans owe the serial adventures of Amos ‘n’ Andy, the kind of affinity that made it possible for New York City Mayor La Guardia to read Little Orphan Annie on the air during the 1945 newspaper strike.

Even though I had very little exposure to radio drama, being the walking TV Guide in my family, I created in the character of Inspektor Bullauge (Inspector Bull’s Eye) a comic for the ear. I made up the story as I played the parts, more interested in the sound effects I could use and record to bring my cardboard creation to life.

Zowie! Despite dedicating an estimated 300,000 words of this journal to popular culture (and radio dramatics in particular), I have never explored here the relationship between onomatopoeia and the equally imaginative world of sound effects . . .

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Dark Echoes

Well, perhaps I am a medium. Perhaps, broadcastellan is more than a mere series of ever so slight and seemingly inconsequential messages. Or, perhaps, this is simply another one of those alleged coincidences I have been pondering, on occasion, with the author of those Relative and to me altogether relevant Esoterica. Two days ago, I shared a make-up chart from the celebrated House of Westmore. Apart from being a fascinating artefact, remotely related to my topic of the day, I thought it was neither here nor there—that realm in which I often find myself while exploring the out-of-date everyday. This evening, though, I learned that another branch of that fruitbearing family tree, Monty Westmore, has died off at the age of 84. Westmore, who was Joan Crawford’s personal makeup artist during the latter part of her career, was still active in the 1990s, working on blockbusters like Jurassic Park.

Last night, I watched what I believed to be the altogether inconsequential College Swing (1938) starring Bob Hope, Martha Raye, Betty Grable, along with a handsome and ever so handy handbag serving as a radio receiver, and that celebrated comedy team of Burns and Allen (aforementioned), who enjoyed such popularity that they were called upon to sell the Paramount feature in the film’s trailer. Today, I learned that Ronnie Burns, the adopted son of Burns and Allen—who frequently featured on his parents’ 1950s television series—passed away on 14 November 2007 at the age of 72; he was three years old when College Swing was shot.

“In the midst of life we are in death,” I thought, without the slightest ambition of being original. It seems there really is no such a mode as escapism; there is no signing off, as long as we acknowledge that the signs and signposts of old lead us straight into the present day. To the receptive mind, any old vehicle has the power to drive us home; everything connects, if only you let it, and even the remotest piece of formerly popular culture will insist on rendering itself significant . . .

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All About Tallulah! (Never Mind “Wardrobe, make-up, or hair”)

Well, Tallulah Hallelujah! How could I pass up the chance to pass on this anniversary double treat? On this day, 16 November, in 1950, Tallulah Bankhead grabbed the microphone to entertain the multitude, first in a recreation of her role in Alfred Hitchcock’s Lifeboat. Two year later, she was heard in the part that might have gone to Claudette Colbert (had she not given her all to make sure that Three Came Home) but is now almost exclusively thought of as belonging to Bette Davis: All About Eve (previously discussed here in its pre-filmic radio version). When I featured clips from these performances in first adventure in podcasting, I was unaware that both “Lifeboat” and “All About Eve” were broadcast on the same day, two years apart.

Now, la Bankhead is more often thought of as a legend than an actress; that is, she is foremost a star, and only secondarily a performer. We generally do not have access to the stage appearances of Hollywood stars of the studio era, a couple of stills and reviews aside. Radio theatricals, however, can give us an inkling of those ephemeral performances. So, once again, I am conjuring up the Tallulah spirit, as I did when last I placed her image on my Quija board.

Bankhead’s performance in the Screen Directors Playhouse production of “Lifeboat,” broadcast on this day, 16 November, in 1950, serves to remind us how good an actress an icon can be. As an uncommonly humble Alfred Hitchcock tells the audience in the introduction to the play,

. . . I think you should know that Lifeboat is not what we call a director’s picture.  There are no trick sets, no camera tricks, in fact, no tricks at all.  When the director approaches such a picture, he offers up a little prayer and delivers himself wholly into the hands of his actors.  Since they are very good actors, the result is just as you should hear it now.

Indeed, the production is very fine, with Bankhead serving as narratrix of her character’s experience aboard that ill-fated vessel. That time around, there were no calls for “Wardrobe, make-up, or hair,” no matter how many times the eccentric star uncrossed her legs.

The Theater Guild adaptation of “All About Eve” was more in keeping with the Bankhead persona in those Big Show days. “Thank you, Mr. Brokenshire,” Bankhead seizes the microphone from her announcer,

and good evening, darlings.  The play we are performing for you this evening on Theater Guild on the Air is called—and I never could understand why— All About Eve.  All About Eve.  True, there is an Eve in it, and what a part that is.  There is also a glamorous and brilliant leading lady of the theatre whose true identity has been kept a secret too long.  Tonight, darlings, tonight baby intends to do something about that.

What a bumpy night it turned out to be. Those two years sure made a difference. You might say, that the campy “Eve” is an extension of or promotional vehicle for the Big Show and the Tallulah image in general. Character had given way for caricature.

How odd it is that such camp is so personal to me; and yet, when I think of Bankhead, I am inevitably reminded of my years in New York City. Sitting in my favorite local park by the East River while preparing for my dissertation on radio drama by listening to a few programs (oh, the hardship a doctoral candidate has to endure), I got to talk to a fellow sun worshipper who, learning about my uncommon soundtrack, asked whether I had come across the name of Florence Robinson, who was an old friend of his. No, I could not say I had; but I soon discovered that Robinson had been Tallulah’s co-star in “All About Eve.”

Just about that time, in those early days of the 21st century, I got to see the Tallulah Hallelujah! starring Tovah Feldshuh in the title role (no, not Hallelujah). A few years later I became friends with the “producing associate” of the show. So, listening to Bankhead, however outré or larger than life she might sound, triggers many a personal memory.

Then again, listening is always personal, as sounds pass the threshold of my ears, entering my body in a way images never could, and keep reverberating in my mind. While no longer surprised, I am still disappointed when I flick through biographies like the one by Joel Lobenthal I am clutching above, accounts of an actor’s life that make so little of their roles on radio and the role radio played during the 1930s, ’40s, and ’50s.

Sure, the The Big Show was not being ignored (even though George Baxt, who novelized Bankhead’s broadcasting experience in the volume shown here, barely gets a mention). Beyond that, though, Bankhead’s “many radio appearances” are summed up as involving “acting in sketches or trading patter with Hildegarde, Fred Allen, Kate Smith, and others.”

Given that recordings are now so readily available, the general disregard for the medium, expressing itself in a line like “[r]adio was Tallulah’s only medium for the next six months,” becomes an intolerable distortion of American popular culture. I wish more attention was being paid to the cultural force of the old wireless, a wish that, aside from all the nonsense and dross you might expect here, is the raison d’être of broadcastellan.

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The Second Hand Sense

Well, I don’t think there is such a thing as a second-hand experience. I mean, either you are experiencing or you are not. That said, much of popular culture consists of hand-me-downs, the most retail-generative of which are being continually retailored to suit new media and markets. Pop is what keeps popping up, what pops in and out of the media we very nearly reserve for popping corn. It is the culture that is second-hand, though, not our appreciation of it. Earlier today, we booked tickets for the Young Vic’s touring production of Hergé’s Adventures of Tintin, based on the comic book Tintin in Tibet, first serialized back in 1958-59. I sure am looking forward to my reencounter with the aforementioned Tintin (or with Tim und Struppi, as I got to know the boy reporter and his dog many years ago in my native Germany). Without requiring any reanimation, the adventure will come to life on the stage of the magnificent Wales Millennium Centre in Cardiff. I shall take it all in, with whatever senses are being engaged, no matter how many layers of text and context separate me from the original strip.

Sometimes, an approximation is all we get to experience. Take Charles Laughton, for instance, who was heard on this day, 15 November, in 1936 in a radio-readied scene from the biopic Rembrandt, in which Mr. Elsa Lanchester played the title role. The radio version (of a scene from the motion picture) was broadcast from London over NBC in the United States. I know, the movie is still extant; it is this original broadcast that seems hard to get.

Laughton (seen here through the eyes of make-up artist Ern Westmore in a chart published in the 24 December 1938 issue of the British Picture Post, previously raided for a shot of Claudette Colbert’s gams and this portrait of Laughton’s Jamaica Inn co-star) is heard extolling the virtues of women, probably not a romantic subject in which the actor had much of a first-hand knowledge.

Considering that the original recording does not appear to be in circulation, I was glad to catch an earful of Laughton’s performance on this 6 March 1957 broadcast of NBC’s self-celebratory second handbasket Recollections, which was being stuffed with this Rembrandt copy more than twenty years after the initial live broadcast. Other goodies shared out on that occasion were Dinah Shore’s “big break” on the Eddie Cantor Show (2 October 1940), a tribute to Wynn Murray, and a 1937 performance by Ray Heatherton (whose photograph you may find on my homepage).

NBC’s broadcasts of Recollections are a first-rate introduction to American radio entertainment of the 1930s and, indeed, to the everyday of US citizens during that period. However much broadcasters depended on stage and screen plays for their material, teasing listeners with their if-only-you-could-see-us-now approach to on-air promotion, tuning had lost little of its excitement during those early days of network broadcasting. I, for one, have never treated listening as a second hand sense, no matter how second-rate the material.

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Dumb? Wait!: Pinter & a Pair of Chekhov’s Shorts

Well, I’ve been struggling to keep up, which makes me feel and appear rather dumber than usual. I have gotten into the habit of editing my journal entries online, of dumping scraps here in hopes of making something of them, eventually. “We must beat the iron while it is hot, but we may polish it at leisure,” Dryden famously said. As a poet, composing in solitude, he probably never thought of doing the polishing in public. At any rate, given the relative obscurity of broadcastellan, I often assume that my composing here is very nearly done in private; but the realization that one looker-on had landed here after scouring the web for references to “Dr. Harry Heuser,” no doubt with the intention of checking my credentials, rather put me off the idea of performance editing. And yet, as dumb as it might be not to wait until such time as the half-cooked turns into a dish fit for tossing into this dumb waiter of a vehicle, I am not easily reformed. It is quite literally too late for that now.

I just got back from an evening of theater. There is always time for that; and the offerings here in the small seaside town of Aberystwyth, just outside of which I reside, is gratifyingly varied. Once again, I can’t wait to share my thoughts, however dumber they will be expressed in the shoddy prose of the moment. Before my memories go stale or my mind blank, I have got to share my thoughts on the Compass Theatre Company‘s production of Pinter’s “Dumb Waiter,” with a “Pair of Chekhov’s Shorts” thrown in.

The shorts suited us just fine. “The Evils of Tobacco” and “The Proposal” (translated by Neil Sissons), are comedy sketches Chekhov wrote for the vaudeville stage early in his career, “Evils” being a monologue and “The Proposal” a one-acter for three characters. Both pieces deal with what is generally thought of as the end of comedy, marriage, by inviting us to see the end of marriage as comedy.

The henpecked husband ostensibly lecturing about the “Evils” of smoking is really more keen on, and indeed desperate to, share his thoughts about his miserable existence as dictated by his controlling spouse. The monologue was delivered with humor and pathos by Michael Onslowe, who was seen in all three pieces. “Evils” would work well on radio, I thought. It is one of my hard-to-kick habits always to think of what I see in the light (or darkness, as it were) of its radiodramatic potentialities.

Nor does “The Proposal” pose any great challenges to the adaptor for radio, even though Sisson deftly exploits the physical aspects of comedy in the slapstick treatment of the suitor’s nervous disposition. As the title suggests, “The Proposal” tells of an intended match, the advancement of which goes awry. However old and slight these two plays, the laughter was not derived from our perception of their datedness; nor did they greatly rely for their effect on the audience’s nostalgia for this kind of entertainment. They simply still work as comic banter.

Pinter’s “Dumb Waiter” is rather more dependent on what is unexpressed, even though Gus, one of the two hapless hitmen waiting for their next job, seemed to have echoed our attitude toward this final play on the bill when he exclaimed: “It’s worse than the last one.” Commenting on the dump of a hotel in which he and his partner Ben are waiting to carry out their next assignment, he adds: “At least there was a wireless there.” Is “Dumb Waiter” radiogenic? Surely not in the way that Pinter’s “A Slight Ache” plays with your mind.

Still, the titular contraption prominently mounted in the center of the stage, and the speaking tube attached to it, made me think of the wireless that Gus was missing. Indeed, it very nearly made me go “Yoo-hoo! Is anybody?” as I thought of Molly Goldberg’s old apartment and the role her dumb waiter played in her everyday communications with the unheard Mrs. Bloom. I guess, a day without radio to me amounts to something like an existential void. It is certainly more than “A Slight Ache.”