The Big Broadcast of 1938

[prog]

The first act was ingenious, wonderful, and perfectly paced. derspatchel has such an affinity for both creating and delivering radio comedy that one is tempted to conclude he was born 70 years too late. The music from Emperor Norton's Stationary Marching Band was hot, and fit in perfectly as a buffer between the vocal performances. I would have happily sat through another two hours of any material, had it maintained the pace of the first.

Unfortunately, acts II and III - the headline acts, really, involving the War of the Worlds adaptation - needed some seriously fierce editing. I know it's easy for me to say, down here in the audience, but I think it would have been possible to compress them into a single act, or at least into two significantly shorter ones.

Now, there were many strong moments (the scene at the site of the first cylinder landing was particularly memorable, with excellent sound engineering from both Foleys and performers), and the use of the Martian Chorus and the Crazy Sound Dood to represent the Invaders was just wonderful. But: there were many scenes that should have been cut, compressed, or combined, not just to bring the three-hour running time down (not counting intermissions), but to better emphasize the cool stuff.

I would have dropped stuff like the mayor's monologue and at least one of the professor's monologues, and ground more out of the three(!) lengthy doomed-news-reporter sequences. I envision the latter two reporter scenes overlapping or interleaving quite nicely, though I realize that's my film-editing experience talking, and that it would be harder to do on-stage.

I would even consider completely removing all the scenes involving the North End mobsters' club. The moll's introduction would then occur when the professor meets her, letting her mob connections (as well as the mobsters themselves) become revealed as a plot twist later on. I would have found the mobsters' motivations stronger if those characters all showed up as a late-game surprise, fighting side-by-side with the army but also trying to get at each others' backs from the get-go.

But, all this is just me sitting in my comfy chair making sniffing noises about how the great and talented me would have done things, when the fact of the matter is that the PMRP has outdone itself once again with a hell of a show, no matter how much tighter it could stand to be. I'm proud to be able to say I worked with them when they were getting started years ago, and prouder still that they just keep getting better.

Comments

[ruthling.livejournal.com]

I agree 100%. There was soo much good stuff in there but the long running time was wearying. Sometimes even really good stuff needs get sacrificed for the good of the production as a whole. I also thought the guy who played the head mobster looked the part, but didn't have the energy to carry off such a significant role and so parts with him in them dragged.

[radiotelescope.livejournal.com]

(I said some of this last night, but...) It ran long, but it was the *first* act where I thought "This is dragging a little." Once the invasion started, I thought it was running full pace. Not that it couldn't have been cut -- but I never thought "I wish this bit were shorter."

(Maybe because it felt like historical pacing, not narrative... it felt like real events.)

Also, Insider Sources Reveal that the Friday night show got out particularly late, not because the show was longer, but because the intermissions were longer. Friday crowd buys beer.

I did hear someone else say that the third act seemed draggy, but that was a member of the band. Because *they* sit around a lot in the third act. :)

[treacle-well.livejournal.com]

I agree, but not 100%. I enjoyed the first act and thought it was quite well paced, but it probably wouldn't have been hurt by some trimming in order to bring the total run time down. And I strongly agree that the whole thing was just too long. I overheard some conversation during intermission that suggested the whole first act should have been cut, but I disagree. Aside from being enjoyable in itself, it was an important period and mood-setter for the subsequent acts. Plus the music was freaking awesome.

I was pretty happy with Act II. My god what a lot of work for the Foley artists; they were damned impressive. While the act was playing out I was very happy with it and it is only in retrospect, that I'd consider maybe some editing would have been effective--and important for keeping total time. down.

Act III, however, really dragged (and perhaps I felt that so strongly at least partly because it was so late, and I was tired) and even if not a lot were to be trimmed, overall I think it would have benefited from just moving faster. On the one hand, that it did move so slowly and started off rather boringly compared to the excitement of Act II gave one some empathy for the weary survivors, but even when more exciting stuff did happen the energy level seemed low and too much was simply narrated. After all the really, really great parts of Act II were those that purported to be happening in real-time, and there was a great deal less of that in Act III. Instead there was a lot of straight exposition that I think came directly from Wells story, and a lot of characters recounting things to provide a background for the events at hand.

But, yes, it was a hell of a show, and I am not at all unhappy that I spent money and over three and a half hours in a theater seat on the event.

indeed

[cthulhia]

there's nothing like seeing where it could've been cut well after it's too late.

most of my complaints were where it turned out the writers were trying to match the historical style... a lot of the individual lines of banter could've been trimmed from Cyrano, but... it took watching a full run-through several times to zero in on which ones. (And really, only needed editing for the full show length problem. Cyrano could be a full show of its own, but, as an intro to War of the Worlds, it needed to be a half hour or less.)

The first act of WotW could have used more of the overlapping style of its first scene, in order to get all the data out, as well as trimming individual lines (but, once again, it takes hearing them a few times.) It eventually occurred to me that the club scenes should've shorter and) only been when the station "lost live feed", talked/acted over the band and probably wouldn't stop until the announcer was already speaking. (but, that would've fallen apart anyway, since the band was loud enough to not need mics, and increasing the actor mics caused crazy feedback & echo problems.)

the final act was apparently mapped to the original format of WotW (which I've not actually heard), but, wow did it drag for the modern audience!

I didn't even hear a read-through of that act before the first full run-through. (And, because those ran so long, most non-3rd act folks were dismissed early, which should be a clue... maybe. It's tough to really know length before the dress rehearsals, and, we only had wednesday for that.)

Throw in Foley every minute or break up that 10 minute scene. break up the monologue about how two isolated characters passed the time then met up with other Brand New characters who then told them how They passed the same time. Instead, switch between *watching* how the otoole group learned the martian songs (should've used the martian songs much more, since they were so effective, but they weren't even in the first major battle scene!), and watching the russo guys steal the deathray (even if we don't know if russo himself survived until it'd becomes a conflict with the professor ... yeah, I had a lot of time to think about it...)

But, even the folks who complained about the length near universally liked everything else about it. So, if the big problem was too much of a good thing, that's pretty awesome.

Re: indeed

[mmcirvin.livejournal.com]

Act II started a little wobbly after the clever transition from Frank Cyrano (on Friday they were having some problems with the audio, lots of feedback) and built to a tremendous climax, thanks to the sound design and Tom Champion. Some of the early mobster scenes in Act II probably could have been cut; the mob guys become interesting in Act III.

One of the most effective things about the revised script, especially in Act II--which I wasn't personally sure would come off--was the use of Boston-area geography. It really helps paint a picture of a massive alien invasion in your head when the landscape the tripods are stomping through is one you know, albeit 70 years back in time.

I recall thinking that the very rough equivalent of Act III dragged in H. G. Wells' original novel.

Here, I actually kind of liked the romantic subplot and the North End/Southie conflict. It was initially hard to tell what was happening in the Martian-breakin scene, though that could be seen as an element of the horror.

[chanaleh.livejournal.com]

Yeah, lillibet explained it as "They didn't have time to write a shorter script, so they wrote a long one." IOW, clearly it could have been tightened, beneficially; but knowing how and where takes time (and energy) that they didn't have by the time the whole thing was even *written*.

Maybe for the revival... or the touring production... ;-)

[mangosteen]

"They didn't have time to write a shorter script, so they wrote a long one."

...and that's after cutting paragraphs and lines from the script. The fact that cuts like that are an incremental process as people hear it played out again and again, only means that it takes more time.

or the touring production... ;-)

Now wouldn't that be a hell of a thing. :)

[spatch]

Byfar Hour writer here. (Hello!) I had written a comment here about how chanaleh was right about the time constraints and the editing process, but ironically the comment was too long for LJ to post.

I've since posted it in full on my own LJ.

[radtea.livejournal.com]

I just edited a story for a submission down from a little over 3000 words to a little under 2500 to meet editorial guidelines, and oh man do I feel for them. It's hard enough when you're just cutting words on a page, making sure you aren't accidentally throwing out some crucial bit of information that turns an insight into noise. With cutting in theatre you're cutting people's lines, you're throwing away hard work that other people have already put in. Necessary to do, but it makes an intellectually challenging task emotionally challenging as well.

[xach.livejournal.com]

Topsy Turvy is one of my favorite movies exactly because it shows this kind of behind-the-scenes theater agony.

[mmcirvin.livejournal.com]

Yeah, it's true that stage shows usually evolve significantly over time on the basis of audience feedback if the run lasts more than a few nights. Wouldn't it be great to have that luxury?

You can learn some technical stuff even over a short run. When we did Countdown to Chaos/Chicken Heart for First Night, I remember feeling frustrated that we only had this one shot and wouldn't be able to correct our inevitable planning screwups on the second night. Actually, that was PMRP's third live performance of Chicken Heart, but there had been a gap of years since the second one and they were all under radically different conditions...

[gee-tar.livejournal.com]

I'm glad that I'm not the only one who has concluded that derspatchel was born 7 decades too late.