“It’s definitely a cautionary tale,” said Bob Eiland about this year’s old-time radio production, “The Day the Earth Stood Still,” sponsored by the Friends of the Arts. In honor of the 10th anniversary of Harvard’s old-time radio productions, a second performance will run at 2 p.m. March 11 in addition to opening night at 7:30 p.m. March 10, both in Volunteers Hall. The performance is free of charge and open to the public, but donations to support the Friends of the Arts are appreciated, as host Pamela Kathleen Hill will tell the audience in her inimitably persuasive tones.
Eiland, director, producer, and actor in the role of Klaatu/Mr. Carpenter, told the Press he chose this script because “it makes a perfect bookend for our very first production, ‘War of the Worlds.’” Both are science fiction, a genre through which the works “disguise” social criticism of a contemporary America prone to prejudice, greed, and violence. Hill, Eiland, and Tim Clark were in the first of Eiland’s productions 10 years ago.
“The Day the Earth Stood Still” was originally a film (based on a short story) produced in 1951; the Lux radio play of it came in 1954. The story uses a spaceman come to Earth as a vehicle to expose social and political issues, relevant both then and now, such as man’s fear of the unknown and the violent reaction that fear produces. The alien, Klaatu, warns, “The universe grows smaller every day, and the threat of aggression by any group, anywhere, can no longer be tolerated. There must be security for all, or no one is secure.”
Veterans and newcomers
The cast of this staged reading comprises both veterans to Harvard’s old-time radio productions and newcomers. In addition to Hill and Eiland, Lynda Vernalia is a returning star, this time in the role of Helen Benson, full of emotion, torn between demands of her boyfriend, the need to protect her son, Bobby, and her increasing suspicions about Mr. Carpenter. Helen Batchelder shows her impressive versatility by playing many characters: Mrs. Crockett, the owner of a boarding house; Hilda, the German assistant to Professor Barnhardt; a publicist; an Army officer; and others. Jim Breslauer also appears in a number of roles, from detective to commentator.
Wyatt Neville (center) pretends to peer around a tree as Pamela Kathleen Hill (right) narrates a scene, and Jack Dacey follows along.(Photos by Lisa Aciukewicz)
Newcomer to the Harvard stage is Jack Dacey of Lowell, whom Eiland knows through a playwriting group. Dacey plays the role of the professor with a convincing German accent and communicates the openness and curiosity of the scientist. He also made the samples of Lux soap products for the commercials in the show. Wyatt Neville, a sixth-grader at Bromfield, plays Bobby. Neville, who was in the school’s “Guys and Dolls,” said he likes the acting this genre calls for. And he’s good at it, as evidenced in one scene in particular where he has to react to the invisible movements of Mr. Carpenter with curiosity and then shock. Newcomer Jim Stoddard’s main role is Tom Stevens, boyfriend of widow Benson, and he convincingly portrays someone who’s “in it for the money.”
Jon Bernhardt plays the theremin. (Photo by Lisa Aciukewicz)
In addition to a strong cast, the success of a radio play lies in its special effects. Foleys Judy Wong and Tim Clark (who has acted in the past nine productions but chose this new role for the 10th) are masters of sound for this no-props genre, here creating everything from music to footsteps to closing doors and drawers. But the new and exciting sound is the theremin, an odd-looking waist-high instrument with an antenna and metal loop, which creates sound electronically by sensing the position and movements of the player’s hands relative to the instrument. The thereminist waves one hand to control pitch and the other for volume. The sounds are high-pitched and eerie, otherworldly, even—sounds perfect for the spacecraft that lands on the National Mall in Washington, D.C. You can hear the air circulating as the craft descends; it’s wholly believable that such sounds would announce the arrival of aliens.
The oldest electronic instrument
The musician playing the theremin is Jon Bernhardt from Somerville, whom Eiland found by searching the internet. Bernhardt said he has been playing the instrument for about 20 years. With two young kids, he doesn’t accept many requests to play, but he said Eiland’s production sounded like fun. What got him interested in the theremin—the oldest electronic instrument—was a book on its creator, Soviet Leon Theremin, who invented the instrument almost 100 years ago and patented it in the U.S. in 1928. In addition to playing the eerie sounds for the appearances of Klaatu (think the arrivals of “Mother” in “Psycho,” except that was done by violin), Bernhardt will play songs on the instrument at intermission and the end of the play. John Chapman will play songs, connected to the play in some way, on the piano at these times, as well.
Pamela Kathleen Hill, as host and narrator, holds the script together. Her purposeful over-the-top tones are alternately dramatic and fearful in describing the landing and amazing power of Klaatu, and gushy and confiding when she says, “There’s really no soap quite like Lux.” In recounting more ordinary events, she often sounds a bit hopeful that something deliciously scandalous might happen. At the end of the play, when she communicates that robots will be patrolling the world and ensuring that we live in peace or perish in violence, her voice conveys the seriousness of it all when she pronounces, “The people on Earth pondered upon the warning.”
