The two male actors, Joe Monte- nari and Eduardo Mora, as well as foley artist Richard Lindsey, were decked out in ’40s attire— baggy pants, suspenders and vintage ties— while the one female actor, Rachel Tully, wore a mid-calf velvet skirt, white dog-ear-collared blouse and hair in “victory rolls,” pinned back on one side. This put the audience in the privileged position of not only hearing but seeing the “broadcast.”
This radio version of The Tell-Tale Heart was the closest to Poe’s 1843 work by the same name, according to director Helen Borgers.
Other versions had embellished the plot and attempted to explain the murderer’s rationale for killing the old man with the annoying eye. Borgers chose to let Poe’s words suffice and keep the audience wondering about the killer’s obsession. Mora as the old man and the police inspector and Montenari as the madman read from their scripts, just as radio actors would have done back in the day.
Throughout the evening, Borgers sat stage right, signaling the actors like an orchestra conductor, providing a visual, rather than merely an intellectual idea of what a director actually does.
The Time Machine is an adaptation of Wells’s 1895 novella in which an eccentric professor (Joe Montenari) asks a doubting dinner guest (Eduardo Mora) to accompany him into the distant future, the year 100080– that’s right: 98,065 years from our present day.
The world is now populated by two divergent humanoids: the docile, childlike Eloi and the apelike, subterranean Morlocks who feed upon them. The Morlocks steal the time machine, but the time-traveling interlopers break into the fortress where it is held and barely escape back to their own Victorian time, where scarcely a minute has passed since their departure.
Tragically, the Eloi named Weena whom they had befriended (Rachel Tully) is left behind, doubtless to become the Morlocks’ next meal.
All three actors delivered their lines with appropriate emotion, though most striking in his delivery was Montenari as the madman in Poe’s short story just before he did the deed. The most fun was had between shows when old-timey commercials were “aired” for the Goad Theatre’s sponsors. What was most fascinating to me, however, was that, unlike any other production I’ve ever seen, one behind-the-scenes person was in full view— Richard Lindsey, the foley artist. He reminded me of a hand bell choir member, deftly moving from one sound-effect prop to another. No surprise that in his workaday world, he’s an air traffic controller, making sure that all the
many “objects” in the sky come in at the right time.
The October Old-Time Horror Radio Classics continue with The Day the Earth Stood Still and Chicken Heart Oct. 16-18, Arsenic and Old Lace Oct. 23-25 and The War of the Worlds Oct. 30-Nov. 1. Performances are Fridays and Saturdays at 8pm and Sundays at 2pm. Tickets are $10 and may be purchased online at LB- Shakespeare.org or by calling (562) 997-1494. The Goad Theatre is located at 4250 Atlantic Ave.
