WAR OF THE WORLDS

Radio is the Sound Salvation

By JONATHAN DONALDSON

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If Orson Welles were alive today, he could still fool people into thinking a Martian invasion were happening, just like he did when he performed War of the Worlds on the radio in 1938. If not Orson Welles, at least Sacha Baron Cohen could make us believe that gay aliens had landed. Even with cable TV and the internet, people are still stupid, and they still haven't read H.G. Wells' 1898 sci-fi classic.

Some things never change, right? This weekend, the Post-Meridian Radio Players will be doing a live performance of two radio classics billed together as The Big Broadcast of October 30th, 1938. Both the sketch comedy classic Frank Cyrano Byfar Hour and the aforementioned H.G. Wells favorite, The War of the Worlds, have been licensed and retooled by the Somerville-based troupe to reflect 1938-era Boston. Whoa, what? Live radio, onstage? "The audience is watching actors in costume and makeup under lights doing a radio show," explains actor Thomas Champion. "It looks like you're part of a studio audience."

Indiana-native Neil Marsh is the founder and artistic director of the Players. When other kids were getting into baseball cards and their brothers' Kiss records, he was listening to recordings of radio programs, such as Bill Cosby's seminal Chicken Heart skit. "A lot of people come to our show and afterwards tell us that they close their eyes and imagine the action based on the voices and the sound effects," says Marsh. For some audience members, the live re-creation of such a radio classic as The War of the Worlds will be an invitation to suspend disbelief and imagine the program as it would have been in 1938. But for others, the temptation to peek behind the scenes is irresistible.

"One of the things that have made the Post-Meridian players so popular is that people like to see how the sound effects are made," says Champion, who plays a field reporter covering the Martian invasion from the observation tower of the Old Custom House. Live musicians as well as sound-effect artists (or "foley artists") perform onstage with the players in full view of the audience using such devices as a tricycle wheel with a credit card stuck in the spokes (machine gun), large sheets of bubble wrap (gun shots), shoes on wooden boards (footsteps) and, of course, coconuts (horse hooves).

Champion himself is actually none other than the communications director for the city of Somerville (you know, robo-calls for snow emergencies and whatnot?), so come to think of it, he actually would be the very person who would be alerting us if such a Martian invasion were to take place! "That's exactly right," says Champion. "I can call the whole city in about 10 minutes."

Performing their third annual Halloween show, the Post-Meridian Radio Players hope to turn their late-October performances into a Somerville institution. "Something of a funkier Nutcracker," says Champion.

Now there's an idea we can all get behind.

THE BIG BROADCAST OF OCTOBER 30TH, 1938
BY THE POST-MERIDIAN RADIO PLAYERS
THURSDAY 10.29.09-SATURDAY 10.31.09
SOMERVILLE THEATRE
55 DAVIS SQ.
SOMERVILLE
617.625.5700
THU-FRI/8PM, SAT 2PM & 8PM
ALL AGES/$15 ADV, $20 DOS
BB1938.COM
PMRP.ORG