CENTERblog

L.A. Theatre Works Excels Using Imagination, Creativity
by Ally Landis - South High School/Alaska Pacific University

L.A. Theatre Works, America’s premiere radio theatre company, captured a different aspect of theatre Sunday afternoon at four o’clock in the Atwood Concert Hall. Tour Manager Diane Adair describes the tour as a mix of traditional theatre containing things such as costumes and lights with unique aspects of radio theatre such as mikes, scripts, sound affects, and people playing multiple characters.

The first part of the show was a re-creation of the 1938 sci-fi radio broadcast based on H.G. Wells’ War of the Worlds. The broadcast-an “eyewitness report” of an invasion of monsters from Mars-caused a nationwide panic for people who didn’t know the broadcast was merely a dramatic adaptation. Millions of Americans thought they were listening to real news and hid in cellars or fled their homes. While that might seem comical today, it was easy to see how it could happen after listening to the performance. All the actors and actresses made the sound effects- from the tapping of a new announcement on the “radio” to the wind blowing and spaceship rising. Props included plastic bottles, cans, and plain old paper. Characters not talking whistled and blew into the mikes to sound like wind and a radio broadcast that was supposed to be coming from above a church was filled with the hum of voices. Characters were in costume and the actors moved around in stage in sync with what was happening, scooting back as the “gray orb” landed and pointing and yelling towards the audience. Every member of the group was always doing something, whether it be speaking, talking, rustling paper, or banging a cymbal. The production was truly unique, causing the audience to use their own imagination to visualize what was being described so vividly and letting the audience kind of see what happens “behind the scenes.” Some speaking parts grew a little long, but this broadcast definitely lived up to expectations of chills and thrills.

After intermission, the group portrayed Arthur Conan Doyle’s The Lost World, a story filled with adventure and comedy as Professor Challenger leads a group of zany characters including a reporter, sportsman, guide, and a female opponent into the jungles of South America searching for dinosaurs. This piece was just plain fun, as one of the cast members explained that audience participation was needed, and congratulations! The audience had been cast as the audience. The audience clapped, booed, roared and even made gorilla sounds on cue. The laughter never stopped for long, from a native Amazonian speaking a language that included the words “boom shacka lacka boom” and “Ulu factory” to the cast members using scripts as oars as they paddled along a river. “We can’t make it, we can’t make it,” they cry, and then all scream as they lift up their scripts to keep from crashing. The audience especially enjoyed a distinctly Alaskan feel to the piece, as the actors fear being trapped forever on a “bridge to nowhere” and newspaper headlines include “Sled Dogs: Friend or Foe.” Imagination and creativity made the script, as rainbow umbrellas took the stage as the dreaded flying pterodactyls and grown men provided ape sounds, accompanied by butt shaking and dancing.

L.A. Theatre Works brings the literature the plays are based on to life, keeping the audience captivated through sound effects, dialogue, and the acting, even though it is different than traditional acting. This performance was something unique and does a splendid job of mixing traditional theatre and radio without taking away from either one.

L.A. Theatre Works War of the Worlds/The Lost World
Anchorage Concert Association
March 1, 2009 at 4:00 P.M.
The Alaska Center for the Performing Arts, Atwood Concert Hall