‘The Hypnotist’

Recorded at: Rosemead Recording Studio, Cotuit, Cape Cod

Play’s location: The Cape Cod Hospital in Hyannis, Massachusetts

First  broadcast: (?)

Trivia:

This high-tech radio thriller is told as though through the mind of a woman in a coma.  Few of the play’s fairly large cast actually ever met face to face during production, as the show was constructed meticulously from the ground up line by line.  Especially when listened to through earphones ‘The Hypnotist’ offers one of the most thrilling climax scenes ever recorded.

Cast:

Dr. Allan Reed, the Hypnotist . . . . . . . . . . .Neil McGarry

Announcer . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Bob Nolan

Gail . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .  Wendy Iwanski

Karen Jefferies . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .  Debby Oney

Killer . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Bill Dame (*)

Nurse . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .   Carol McManus

Doctor Reuben . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .  Kevin Groppe

Professor . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .  Bob Nolan

Detective . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Jack Brady (*)

Nurse #2 . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Kristie Weimar (*)

Karen’s Mother . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Mary B. Jones (*)

Officer Murphy . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Sean Herlihy

Doctor Morgan . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Jeff Camish

(*) First appearance in a CCRMT program

AUTHOR’S NOTES AND RECOLLECTIONS:

With three Captain Underhill programs now under our belts, one thriller and one spoof, it seemed like an auspicious time to try our hands at another suspense thriller.

The story idea came about because  I was still steeping myself in all things Charles Dickens.  I had read in one of his biographies about his interest in hypnotism and his attempts to use it to cure a female acquaintance of her mental problems (much to the consternation of Dickens’ wife).   Other influences may have derived from years before, when Annie and I had taken various yoga and meditation courses, including a centering workshop with Roberta Miller in Boulder, Colorado as well as a course called Silva Mind Control in Minneapolis (Which, by the way, I credit with having imparted some valuable mental techniques that came in very handy as a mystery writer).  I began to ponder –and still wonder about—whether techniques of hypnotism could be applied to person in a comatose state, attempting to place them in an hypnotic trance and then lift them up to consciousness, more or less by the same technique the hypnotist uses when he ends an hypnotic trance, e.g.  counting to three, and snapping his fingers.  Whether this notion has any medical soundness or not, it was at least sound enough to use as the basis for a radio thriller.

Because the nature of the story required a jumbling up of time and events, we elected to shift production from John Todd’s HT Recording Studio, in Dennis, to Mark Birmingham’s home studio in Cotuit.  Mark’s studio contained not only a Synclavier –a music synthesizer with a programmable keyboard, a God-like machine at the time equivalent to the Ark of the Covenant–, he also had an F-1 digital recorder, which, with batteries, weighed about 800 pounds and had to be lugged around in a foam-lined, aluminum suitcase you could use to smuggle alligators.  We also used a floppy hard-drive, back in the days when floppies were truly floppy.  However, archaic as it all sounds now, the sound quality was exceptional and enabled us to achieve the highest quality results.

Neil McGarry then

The most important role in the story is that of the title character, the compassionate psychiatrist and hypnotist, Dr. Allan Reed.  Neil McGarry proved perfect actor for the part.  Neil had trod our stage for the first time in the previous production, ‘The Case of the Murdered Miser’ but had managed to fly in under the radar for that one.  However, in this role, he really stood out and proved himself to have the perfect voice and acting ability to play the part of the sensitive, heroic, leading man, (a perfect face as well, though that is neither here nor there in radio.  Slap a pencil-thin mustache on him and he could have stood his own against any 1930s matinee movie idol.)   Neil’s warm baritone voice had just the right quality for whispering his spellbinding exhortations into the ear of his patient, –and into the listener’s ear as well.

In fact, during the making of this show, I recall having some misgivings, mostly derived from a story I recall reading in a comic book in 1962, out of my cousin, Bill Radcliffe’s collection.  The story tells the tale of a thief, who is also a hypnotist, and who comes up with a clever scheme to rob patrons at a movie house by showing a movie trailer of himself conducting an hypnosis session.  The idea being that he could put them all into a trance, steal their money and jewels and then plant a post-hypnotic suggestion to make them forget what had happened.  (Spoiler alert:  the hypnotist/thief and his cohorts make the mistake of watching the trailer as well, thus are hypnotized too and their scheme backfires).

NEIL McGARRY now

I began to wonder if the recorded scenes of Neil’s hypnosis sessions might cause some of our listeners to actually become hypnotized, picturing drivers at the wheels of their cars in zombie-like trances driving off the road, snapping off trees and telephone poles.   Although a number of listeners have reported to us that listening to our shows have caused them to drive past their exits on the highway, I am relived to report that in the 20+ years since the program aired, ‘The Hypnotist’ has not been responsible for a single highway accident –or if it has they have all been fatalities.

One further minor recollection: About this time, I had sent a couple of our first shows to the program director of WGBH in Boston.  Her response was, that while she found them entertaining, she didn’t think they were educational enough to be broadcast on public radio.   Spurred by this, I added to ‘The Hypnotist’ script, the part of the pontificating professor, played by Bob Nolan, whose voice drifts through the mind of the comatose victim, uttering cryptic philosophical epigrams, the idea being thereby to lend the show a more ‘educational’, higher-brow patina.  It may have worked.  WGBH aired the show the year it came out.

Two other newcomer actors I thought did an excellent job:

One was Mary B. Jones who played the coma victim’s nagging mother (as if she was born to the role).  The other was Bill Dame, a friend of Neil’s, whom Neil brought into the production to play the part of the psychopath.  Bill’s performance sounds particular creepy and menacing, but don’t think it was type-casting.  Bill is a gentle soul and not actually wicked in any way, except perhaps his sense of humor.  He always had us breaking up on the set.

Portrait of Bob Nolan

One last recollection, and it’s a favorite one of mine to be sure.  The climatic scene occurs when the killer shows up at the hospital disguised as a doctor in order to do in his victim whom he failed to finish off before.  Dr. Reed interrupts the killer before he can carry out his murder, and then the Good Doctor attempts one last desperate time to lift her out of her coma by insisting and compelling her to imagine herself in an elevator on its way up. (This is largely copied from a self-hypnosis technique taught in Silva Mind Control).  Neil McGarry’s performance at this juncture is electrifying but the real kicker comes with Mark’s added music which underscores the scene and turns it into a stupendous climax.

I remember leaving his studio at 11 pm that night and returning the next morning at 7 to find out that he had pulled an all-nighter.   Without preamble Mark sat me down in his swivel chair and said, “Listen to this.”  I was bowled over.  You will be too.

‘The Case of the Murdered Miser’

Recorded at: HT Recording Studio, Dennis, Cape Cod

Play’s location: Victorian London during Charles Dickens’ brief tenure as a reporter

First live broadcast: Live performance:  Sandwich High School,

simulcast WSDH, 91.5 FM,  Saturday, November 22^nd, 1986

Trivia:                           This radio whodunit has led some credulous listeners to believe that a real Ebenezer Scrooge existed and that he was the victim in a murder case at the Old Bailey Courthouse where his clerk, Bob Crachit, stood in the dock accused.  This Perry Mason courtroom spoof has consistently ranked as a listener favorite, although a few have felt just the opposite, objecting to our tampering, however playfully, with Dickens’ beloved world masterpiece.  The author partially agrees.

Cast in order:              Cabbie. . . . . . . . . . . . . Bob Nolan *

Constable Delwood Perkins . . . Neil McGarry *

Bob Crachit . . . . . Jeff Camish *

Announcer . . . . . . . . . .  Fred Morey *

Rawley Fingers . . . . . Bob Gianferante *

Charles Dickens . . . . Daniel MaClean *

Clerk . . . . . . . . Scott Dickey

Judge Francis Hawkins . . . .Bob Giaferante *

Sir Percy Mason . . . . . . .Bob Nolan *

Hamilton Burgomaster, Esq . . . . Jeff Camish *

Fredrick Applegate . . . . . Neil McGarry *

Ebenezer Scrooge . . . . . Carol McManus

Giles Pithy . . . . . . . . . Bernard Willis *

Martha Crachit . . . . . . .Carol McManus

Barney Sullivan . . . . . . . . . Jeff Camish *

Paul Mandrake . . . . . . . . . Neil McGarry *

Davy O’Shanty . . . . . . . . .Floyd Pratt

Belle Langley . . . . . . . . . . Debby Oney

Lucy Duffy . . . . . . . . . Eva Broderson *

Jason Every . . . . . . . . . Scott Dickie

(*) First appearance in a CCRMT program

Author’s Notes and Recollections:

‘The Case of the Murdered Miser’ was the fourth radio play that our still fledging group attempted and the first time we departed from a suspense thriller or a Captain Underhill mystery to try our hands at a spoof.

The story idea came about because I had been studying Perry Mason mysteries, both the novels and the Raymond Burr TV re-runs.  (My older brother and I used to enjoy watching them regularly and even had developed a fairly reliable method of correctly guessing the real murderer based solely upon at what point the nefarious character is introduced into the story.)  I had been an inveterate admirer of Charles Dickens, especially his Christmas Carol, having read the story many times, loved it since childhood, and seen practically every dramatized version that came out, whether for screen, television, radio or stage.  From Reginald Owen to George C. Scott,  From Lionel Barrymore to Mr. Magoo.   It is one of the seminal works of Western civilization, and so I am sympathetic and partially agree with those listeners who are uncomfortable with anyone brazen enough to attempt to transform this heartwarming tale it into a jaundiced courtroom melodrama.

I can only claim in self-defense that  1) at the very end of the play it redeems itself and 2) that if you examine the original story closely you will see it is the perfect murder mystery waiting to be told, i.e. everyone hated Scrooge and everyone had a motive to kill him, and 3) as the old saying goes: satire  often makes fun of what it most respects.

We needed British accents across the board, so John Todd, Scott Dickie and I advertised locally and held another open audition at Cape Cod Community College.  And, like fishermen casting their nets in the sea, again we made a major haul of talent.

First and chief on the list there was Bob Nolan of Sandwich, who was the perfect choice to play Sir Percy Mason, not only because he could act and had a great voice and an authentic accent, but because he was actually a barrister himself.   Bob was also a font of sparkling wit, with lots of sotto voce repartee that constantly had everybody cracking up in the studio.  When he wasn’t acting or being a wiseacre, he would sit in a corner reading his favorite author, Marcel Proust.   A further qualification: Bob was born on Christmas Day.  As a practicing attorney he worked in Washington D.C. under the Eisenhower administration and later in Boston as a trial lawyer.  On Cape Cod he was a director of the Friends of Prisoners, Cape Cod Chapter.  I remember bumping into him one day in front of the Barnstable County Courthouse where he had just been mentoring several prisoners in the lockup.  I lauded him for his selfless work, but his only response that day was to shake his head and reply in his low, dulcet tones, saying, “You can’t take the wiggle out of a snake.”

One further note on Bob, when we did Murdered Miser live on the stage at Sandwich High School and broadcast it over the air, Bob somehow either fell asleep on stage or was accidentally hypnotized.  The result was he ended up 12 pages behind in the script.  I was on stage too, at the podium facing the audience, and when it was his turn to speak and he didn’t chime in on cue, I turned to look at him where he sat.  His head was tilted to one side, his eyes were closed and he was clearly unconscious.  As I was closest, I leaned over and touched him on the shoulder to wake him up, and I will never forget the look on his face when he awoke.  It was the real-life fulfillment of the classic actor’s nightmare to suddenly wake up on stage and forget your part.  Local radio personality, Ray Brown, was playing the part of Judge Hawkins and, like a real pro, he adlibbed marvelously while Bob caught up.

There were other great actors and accents in the cast too:  Jeff Camish, using his perfect natural accent as well as his chameleon-like voice he was able to play three parts: Hamilton Burgomaster and Bob Crachit as well as the bartender, Barney Sullivan.  Carol McManus, fresh from The Automatic Murders, played Martha Crachit and lobbied hard to play Scrooge too, which she had done as a child and which she pulled off with aplomb.  Her close friend, Eva Broderson, another member of the Sandwich Glasstown Players, had an authentic accent and the sweetest personality.  She played the charwoman, Lucy Duffy.

Bob Gianferante played a very comedic hanging judge, Judge Hawkins, as well as the professionally-compromised tabloid reporter, Rawley Fingers.  (A note on that character’s name:  while writing the script I dredged it out of my subconscious, liking the sound of it and  believing it to be a name that corresponded to the personality of the character I was after and also the kind of name that Charles Dickens might have chosen.  It was only later when we were at the music stage that  Mark Birmingham pointed out to me that Rawley Fingers was the name of a pitcher for the Yankees.  However, by then I was too committed to using it, feeling it matched the character too well, and besides, I predicted, with haughty expectations, that my  play would far outstrip the memory of any transient baseball player anyway, especially a Yankee.

Neil McGarry donned an accent and showed up to play three parts: Fred Applegate, Paul Mandrake and Constable Delwood Perkins.

Floyd Pratt did a great job as the house-breaker, Davy O’Shanty.

Annie Oney (AKA Debby, Deb, Dev and Amrit) put on her accent and played the gold digging, Belle Langley.   After we recorded the voices, John, Scott and I once again lay in the sound effects, and Mark, once more, supplied the music using a harmonium this time to conjure up the sound of Victorian England.

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‘The Case of the Automatic Murders’

Recorded at: HT Recording Studio, Dennis, Cape Cod

Play’s location: A mansion in Osterville on Cape Cod

First broadcast: November 1982, WOCB 94.9 FM, West Yarmouth

Trivia: –Although ‘A Test for Murder’ and ‘Murder from the  Bridge’ preceded ‘The Legacy of Euriah Pillar’ and ‘The Automatic Murders’ as Captain Underhill mysteries, they were originally written as short stories and only later converted to radio.  ‘Euriah Pillar’ and ‘The Automatic Murders’, however, were conceived and composed as radio plays from the outset.

– The play contains a smart aleck remark made by Underhill to Dr. Scofield in the examination room, complaining about the battery of his pacemaker being called a ‘Die Hard’.  I’m not sure whether anyone still gets it.  Does Sears still make the car battery of that name? The joke may be dated.

–The script contains what Wally O’Hara (Dr. Scofield) has always claimed to be his favorite lines of Underhill/Scofield dialogue:

Scofield: “ . . . I’m referring to this

handmade his doll, and

the fact that Tishua comes

from Jamaica.  You know

what that means?”

Underhill: “What?”

Scofield: “Voodoo.”

Underhill: “Voodoo?”

Scofield: “Yes, voodoo.”

Underhill: “Who do?”

Scofield: “She do –I mean, she

does!  Waverly, be serious!”

Cast:

Announcer . . . . . . . . . . . . . Floyd Pratt

Captain Waverly Underhill . . . Dave Ellsworth

Doctor Alexander Scofield . . . . . Wally O’Hara

Theodora Langhorne . . . . . . . . Carol McManus *

Tishua the Cook . . . . . . . . . . . . Carol McManus

Nick the Butler . . . . . . . . . . . . . Jack Brady *

Gretta the Housekeeper . . . . . . Melinda Gallant *

Louise Symington . . . . . . . . . . . Lee Olive

Sybil Langhorne . . . . . . . . . . . . Wendy Iwanski *

Nurse Carol . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Debby Oney

(*) First appearance in a CCRMT program

Author’s Notes: The plot:  In casting about for a storyline for another Captain Underhill mystery, I had been trying to come up with stories that would lend themselves well to treatment on radio.  At the time I had been reading quite a bit of Sherlock Holmes and was also aware of Arthur Conan Doyle’s belief in the spirit world, including such things as séances and automatic writing, as well as Houdini’s crusade against frauds.  It struck me that a séance was particularly the kind of thing that would work well on radio especially since séances are usually conducted in the dark and involve disembodied voices.  I had also been reading and studying Perry Mason stories pretty closely, particularly those written during the middle 1940s, when Erle Stanley Gardner was at the height of his powers.

The role of Theodora Langhorne was an amalgam from different sources.  The name came from Mark Twain’s middle name, Samuel Langhorne Clemens.  The character is modeled after my wife’s paternal grandmother, Amey Develin Geier, or Nanny as everyone called her.  She was a grey-haired matriarch and grand dame who lived in Indian Hill, Cincinnati, hailed from Philadelphia Blue Blood and grew up knowing how to behave imperiously (although never haughtily, if you accept the distinction).  She was a family favorite who loved her grandchildren, especially her blue-eyed, golden-haired Debby whom she doted over.  Whenever a matriarchal grandmother has been needed in these mystery plays Nanny has always served as the model, for example, Lady Kemp in ‘The Golden Idol, the Magwitch and the Donkey’s Tail’.

The role in the recording is played most ably by Carol McManus of Sandwich, whom at the time was already a well-established actress trodd-ing the boards at various theater venues on the Cape, especially The Sandwich Glasstown Players, a group she co-founded.

Carol always brings a lot of herself to every role she plays, especially her unbridled vivacity.  She also auditioned for and helped me with the part of Tishua (a rip-off of Tituba from The Crucible) in which she plays the Jamaican cook.  When of high school age, Carol spent a number of years growing up in Jamaica so she already knew how to speak the accent perfectly:

Tishua: “Mista Docto’ you be

carefu’.  Dere’s spir’ts in dis

house!  Dere’s spirits all around!”

I also liked Wendy Iwanski’s performance of the emotionally fragile Sybil Langhorne.  She gives it just the right amount of timorousness, I think.

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The Caller on Line One

Recorded at: HT Recording Studio, Dennis, Cape Cod

Play’s location:           fictional location: WPPX, ‘The Voice of Cape Cod’ Seagull Lane, West Yarmouth modeled after the then, WOCB, South Sea Street, West Yarmouth.

First aired: Halloween, October 30^th, 1982

Trivia: During the recording of the climatic, on-air murder scene, actors, Laine Davis and Kevin Groppe, were in a sound sutdio isolation booth out of sight of the engineer and director.  The arrival of the psychopath at the station was done in a single take and both actors were giggling and laughing all the way through it and yet their performance comes across as chilling as it gets.

There is a favorite line of dialogue spoken by the Psychopath that some listeners like to quote: “Problem?  I never said I had a problem.”

Cast:

Announcer . . . . Floyd Pratt

Tanya Macklin . . . Laine Davis

Ron, the Engineer . . . John Todd*

Caller #1 . . . . . . . . . Grace Biggers*

Dennis Luckhurst . . . . . Kevin Groppe

Caller #3 . . . . . . . . . Dave Margulis*

Caller #5  . . . . . . . . . Debby Oney*

Mrs. Epstein . . . . . . . Lee Olive*

Caller #7 . . . . . . . . . . Jean Todd*

(*) First appearance in a CCRMT program

Author’s Notes:  The Caller on Line One was our second production, our first suspense show, and our first real-time thriller. (Those not familiar with the catagory should treat themselves to Lucille Fletcher’s 1944 classic, suspense masterpiece, Sorry, Wrong Number.) 

Just as we were finishing up The Legacy of Euriah Pillar and were about to proceed onto our next script, another Captain Underhill mystery, The Case of the Automatic Murders, I had the inspiration for the story that I eventually called The Caller on Line One. It came about as much as a lightning bolt out of the blue as I’ve ever had.  I was sitting on the couch one evening reading the newspaper.  I had the TV on but the sound off, and I happened to glance over and see a few seconds of footage on the tube, an unidentified woman in a broadcast booth, –either a disc jockey or a talk show host, I’m not sure which—but just that little glimpse was enough.  The initial thought was to simulate an advice-on-the-air radio call-in show and then have something suspenseful happen during it.   The suspense ended up being a psychiatrist on the Cape, who while listening to the radio show, suddenly recognizes the voice of one of his former patient’s, an escapee from a mental institution.

Like a curtain going up I saw the whole story, with one exception that, without going into it too much, has to do with the main twist.  That twist didn’t come until the second day when, as I was describing the idea to my wife, Annie, (AKA  Debby, Dev, Deborah or Amrit) she misunderstood something I said, and, as I was about to correct her, suddenly I comprehended the delightful possibilities of how that misunderstanding could be put to good use.  In other words, my wife thought of it, but she didn’t know she thought of it.  I say this because she likes to take more credit for the story than I think she deserves.  She thinks she deserves co-authorship; I liken it to a monkey accidentally typing out the works of Shakespeare on a typewriter.

I should also mention that on WOCB at the time there was a local call in show I sometimes listened to, hosted by DJ, Michele Haines.  Her program was not quite as Ann Lander-ish and psychological as Tanya Macklyn’s Talkline, but still along the same lines.

In a week or ten days the script was finished.  We decided to try to record it for broadcast on Halloween.   Jack Brady (WOCB Program Director?) promised if we finished it in time, he would put it on the air.  There was no time for holding further auditions.  Laine Davis was the perfect Tanya anyway.  John Todd was reluctantly conscripted into playing the part of the audio engineer since, in fact, that’s what he was.  His wife, Jean Todd, was corralled into playing the Final Caller.  Annie was pressed into the part of the Woman Who Keeps Her Door Locked.

Other newcomers, who were all good, included: Dave Margulis who played the Man with the Tattooed Girlfriend (back in the days when tattoos were still considered scandalous); Grace Biggers who played the worried First Caller; Patience Martin, who showed up to turn in a completely spot-on interpretation of the gum-chewing high school student; and Lee Olive who played the part of Mrs. Epstein.  At WOCB, Disc jockey, Frank Mitchell, helped Annie and I record the bogus commercials used in the background.  Mark Birmingham composed and recorded the music for each of these fictitious radio ads.

Kevin Groppe, fresh off playing the part of Leander Pillar, seemed like the best choice for the psychopath.  It is a challenging role, and anyone who has heard the program knows why his performance had to be just right or the show itself would fall apart.  Kevin pulled it off admirably.

The Caller on Line One typifies a type of suspense show that is tailor made for radio because it plays to one of radio’s great strengths as a dramatic medium:  the fact that the audience never gets to see the faces of the actors.

Once the dialogue was finished, the bogus commercials added and the sound effects layered in, again done by John Todd, Scott Dickie, and I, then Mark went to work on the music.  His marvelous underscoring is really worth paying attention to particularly at the beginning, when Floyd Pratt, as the Announcer, is setting the stage.  Mark takes his tip-toe theme music and gives it a wonderful, swirling, Rachmaninoff-style treatment, one of his best variations on a theme.

We managed to complete the program only a day before it was scheduled to be broadcast.  It was not advertised at all.  John Todd ran off a copy from the master, and I delivered the 10 inch reel tape to Jack Brady at the station.  He, in turn, gave it to Robin Cook, the disc jockey who was slated to work the Halloween shift at WOCB.  She would be alone at the station that night.  Jack’s only instructions when he handed over the recording, was to start the tape precisely at 8 pm and let it run.

At home I listened to the broadcast and when it came time for the first commercial break and bogus commercial poor Ms. Cook, uninformed and at a loss, stopped the tape and inserted a real commercial in its place.  During the break, she listened to more of the show and realized her mistake.  After that she let the program run uninterrupted to the end.

Fifteen minutes after the program was over, I received a phone call from Robin; she was both laughing and a nervous wreck.  Nervous because Tanya Macklyn’s situation in the program so mirrored her own, except that at least Ms. Macklyn had Ron the Engineer to keep her company.  Robin was manning it all alone.  She informed me that she had fielded half dozen calls from listeners who took the program seriously.  An equal number of calls were made to the Yarmouth police.

Of course, we were somewhat tickled by that.  Without intending to, we had pulled off an Orson Welles War of the Worlds style prank, albeit on a much smaller scale.  The following year when The Caller on Line One was aired on NPR, also on Halloween, it caused a traffic jam outside a post office in Hartford, Connecticut as patrons in their cars, arriving to pick up their mail, refused to leave their vehicles until the exciting climax was reached.  As the gentleman who kindly called to informed me what happened said, there were approximately 40 cars snarled in the parking lot, everyone looking at one another through their windshields and then all finally getting out as soon as the show was over, another testimonial to the power of Radio Mystery Theater to grab and hold an audience.

In 1992 at the Cape Museum of Fine Arts (now renamed the Cape Cod Museum of Art) CCRMT presented a stage version of Caller, complete with a functioning radio station set, by Upset Inc., including a 30 foot radio tower with blinking red lights.  Anne Marie Lang played Tanya Macklyn; Dug Credit was Ron the Engineer; Dan Yonce played the psychopath; Kerry Sullivan was The Woman Who Keeps her Door Locked; Marion Lueders played the First Caller as well as the Bridge Club Lady; Emma Roberts the High School Student; Jonelle Harrison was The Woman with Cat Problems; and I played the man with The Man with the Tattooed Girlfriend.  For this stage version we gave the story a few extra callers and a different twist too at the end: when the psychopath shows up at the station, Tanya, in an effort to save herself, invites him to come on the air with her and help give advice to callers calling in with their personal problems.

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LINER NOTES:

In response to listener requests for more background information on  the shows, how they were made and how the series evolved we are introducing Liner Notes, meant to hearken back to the good-ole-days of record albums and the sometimes treasure trove of material to be found on the back covers and on the album sleeves.  This impromptu history is intended to be that, tossing in memories, photographs, artwork, reviews and backstage gossip that, if nothing else, will supply the listener with something for the eyes to peruse while the ears are listening.

We’ll even throw in a few recorded bloopers from time to time, of which there were plenty.

Steven Thomas Oney

The Legacy of Euriah Pillar

Recorded at: HT Recording Studio, Dennis, Cape Cod

Play’s location: Vicinity of Barnstable/ West Barnstable on Cape Cod

First broadcast: WOCB  September 1982

Trivia: Laine Davis plays not only the part of Audrey Pillar but all other female voices in the play as well.

Actors:

Announcer . . . . . . . . . . . . . Floyd Pratt *

Captain Waverly Underhill . . . Dave Ellsworth *

Doctor Alexander Scofield . . . . . Wally O’Hara *

Leander Pillar . . . . . . . . . . . . .Kevin Groppe *

Audrey Pillar . . . . . . . . . . . . . Laine Davis *

Simon Pillar . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Robert Mazzette *

Horatio Salazar, Esquire . . . . Sean Herlihy *

Waitress . . . . . . . . . . . Charlene Goudrealt *

(*) First appearance in a CCRMT program

Drawing by Scott Dickie

Author’s Notes: The Legacy of Euriah Pillar was Cape Cod Radio Mystery Theater’s first radio mystery and the first Captain Underhill story conceived entirely as a radio play.  The story idea developed as I was recuperating from an illness and, for curiosity sake, went one afternoon and sat in on Probate Court at the Barnstable Court House in Barnstable Village just to see what went on there.  Afterwards I began pondering what sort of bizarre Last Will and Testament an eccentric person might devise.    (by the way, the unusual spelling of ‘Euriah’ is not a mispelling but the way I saw it written on an old Cape Cod tombstone.)

.Steven Oney in 1982

Once the script was ready to go, I placed an announcement in the local papers seeking actors.  Enthusiastic response resulted in two full nights of auditions.  The auditions were held at the Cape Cod Community College and one of the first to show up was Wally O’Hara.  What a distinctive radio voice!  Perfect for Scofield!  Plus he could really act!

Wallace Warren O’Hara circa 1950

Wally was already a familiar voice to many radio listeners not only on Cape Cod but in Boston as well.  For years he had been the principal news announcer at the big commercial station WEEI.   When Wally ‘retired’ to the Cape, he performed the same duties at WOCB in West Yarmouth.

Another person who showed up the first night of auditions was Laine Davis.  Like Wally, Ms. Davis was already a familiar voice to many Cape radio listeners.  She worked at WOCB as well where twice daily she broadcast the commercial fishing report to all the fishermen at sea.   (Note: Laine later served as the inspiration for the character of Molly Neptune in CCRMT’s mystery, The Case of the Calico Lobster.)

One aspect of radio theater that makes it particularly egalitarian is that when it comes to acting it is not so important how you look, but how you sound.  Radio can be a haven for actors with golden throated voices but with only ordinary or mediocre looks.  For those, however, blessed with good looks as well as a good voice, radio can seem like a tragic squandering of talent, sort of like hiding one’s light under a bushel.  Ms. Davis belongs to this latter category.  No male member of the cast or crew ever complained about working extra hours when Ms. Davis was on the set.

Kevin Groppe, who plays Leander Pillar, was another who showed up on the first night of auditions.  As did Sean Herlihy who plays the shyster lawyer, Horatio Salazar.  Another who came was Floyd Pratt.  Floyd, a heavy smoker with a gruff voice, had done some hard living, however, he was always a jovial presence in the studio,although in a kind of Long John Silver kind of way.  In fact, if you were to go in search of someone to play the part of a perfect pirate you couldn’t do better than Floyd.  Supply him an eye patch, a tri-cornered hat and a green parrot on his shoulder and he would look like he was straight out of Central Casting.

Following the two nights of auditions all of the parts in the play were cast with the exception of the central character, the detective, retired police captain, Waverly Underhill.  This part proved the hardest to fill.

Although there are obvious overtones to Captain Underhill to the great Sherlock Holmes, the character was also an amalgam of two real people, 1) my wife’s great uncle, Jimmy Develin of Philadelphia, who possessed the same sardonic wit; and my own dear uncle, Scott B. Radcliffe, who was the head of the State Highway Patrol in Ohio.  An intrepid and unflappably cool customer, Scott Radcliffe came from cowboy beginnings in Montana, started out as a motorcycle patrolman in Ohio and, after several acts of death-defying heroism, rose to the highest position in the Highway Patrol.  Uncle Scotty proved both a role model and a source of many useful police facts and lore.  I was a teenager when he retired from the Highway Patrol and began making police training films which proved nothing but pure grist for the aspiring mystery writer, (although he didn’t know it then).  Films like: how to spot shop-lifters and how to secure and search a warehouse were some of the topics.

Wally and Dave performing “Euriah Pillar” on stage at the Cape Museum of Fine Arts, 1995

A recommendation from a local acquaintance finally led me to an actor in Osterville, Dave Ellsworth, who was then regularly commuting to New York City to appear in the long running TV soap, All My Children. Dave and I met and he fit the bill superbly with an acting ability that nicely complimented Wally O’Hara’s.  I remember my only reservation at the time was that his voice didn’t sound quite as old as I imagined the part should be.  (As the years have passed, however, Dave has generously cooperated, transforming himself into an older version of himself to better fit the part)

The Legacy of Euriah Pillar was recorded at HT Recording Studio.  HT was John Todd’s converted, garage recording studio.  Built off the side of his house, the only way to reach the bathroom was to invade their private living space.  (Note to Jean Todd: your forbearance will forever be acknowledged for allowing the steady stream of perfect strangers to traipse through your dining room and kitchen at all hours of the day and night).

The dialogue for Euriah Pillar was recorded over several evenings.  No rehearsals were done, we began on page one and keep going in a stop/start fashion until we reached the end.  After all the dialogue was complete, John and I and an invited friend of his, Scott Dickie, all worked together to layer in the sound effects and sound beds:  the fog horn was created by blowing across an empty beer bottle; the bell buoy by tapping an aluminum funnel with a metal knife; door sounds were studio doors; the motorcycle pulling up was Dave pulling up on his;  the cricket sound bed was recorded just outside the studio as were the digging sounds; and Underhill’s car pulling up, which sounds on the recording like a rattle-trap Model T, was actually Scott’s rattle-trap Karmin Gia.

Scott Dickie multi-tasking

Both Scott and John were multi-talented professional musicians.  They also knew their way around recording studios, especially John who could deftly handle his Otari half-track and his 8 track TEAC as nimbly as if he were a skilled brain surgeon  –the comparison is especially apt when you consider the tricky edits of audio tape splicing that John had to perform wielding his razor blade like a scalpel.

Captain Underhill and Doctor Scofield regularly meet at the Dock Street Chowder House, a fictional restaurant.  There is no Dock Street and no chowder house; however its location has always been in my mind somewhere along the wharf of Hyannis’ Inner Harbor.  There is another restaurant mentioned in the script, Fiddle-Jacks, which came from the blending of the names of two real restaurants in Hyannis, Fiddlebees and Wack-a-Jacks.  Both no longer exist.

Foley Girls in Portland performance of Euriah Pillar/Annie blows the foghorn, Janice Gray rings the bell buoy

The music cues and theme music were supplied by Mark Birmingham of Cotuit.

Mark and I had gotten together through a mutual acquaintance, Betsy Doriss.  Betsy plays the oboe in the Cape Cod Symphony.

When I mentioned to her that I was working on an attempt to revive the genre of Radio Mystery Theater, she said she had the perfect person I had to meet: an accomplished composer and concert pianist who was interested in writing music for films.

Mark and I met one afternoon.  We discussed our ideas for the project and what kind of musical cues would be needed.  Mark went home that night and returned the very next day having composed and recorded 5 different possibilities of theme music.  The first one was the best and the one we chose.   It was catchy.  It had a nice tip-toeing, Alfred Hitchcock feel to it suggestive of fun and suspense.  Used in every program since, Mark’s inspired theme has become the most recognizable element of the series.

Mark Birmingham circa 1980

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(TO BE CONTINUED)