By DAVID DUPONT
BG Independent News
Love is a mystery, sometimes a farce. It has a way of making some people quiver like a bowl of Jell-O that delectable elegant easy to whip up dessert.
OK that was a word from the faux sponsor of the “Black Swamp Players’ Radio Hour,” a faux radio drama on the faux radio station WBSP. While there’s a lot of “faux” in the last sentence there’s nothing fake about the sense of delight that exudes from the Players’ first production in their new home on Oak Street in downtown Bowling Green.
The show directed by Inge Klopping includes two one acts – “A Sherlock Holmes Radio Mystery” and “A Matter of Husbands.” It is being presented live on stage for a limited audience this weekend – those tickets are sold out. A filmed version of the show will be available Friday, April 30, starting at 7 p.m. through the evening of May 7. Click for tickets for the on demand show.
The first script, adapted by Jon Jory, has Sherlock Holmes (Lane Hakel), the master of cool-headed logically thinking, coming face-to-face with his most beguiling and daunting opponent, a lovely woman with an air of intrigue about her, Irene Adler (Lydia Schafer).
Sherlock is engaged by the King of Bohemia (Philip Wylykanowitz) to retrieve a photo from the lady. The photo is a compromising image from when the king and Irene were an item, and he fears she will release it before his impending nuptials to a royal princess with delicate sensibilities. Sherlock cooks up a plan with the assistance of Watson (Anderson Lee). It involves theatrics and pyrotechnics. That brings out the ham in Sherlock and Hakel. Amy Wylykanowitz rounds out the cast with a couple character turns.
The second piece is a sketch, “A Matter of Husbands” by Ferenc Molnár. one which a distressed, mousey young wife (Melissa Kershaw) visits an older actress (Annelise Clifton) with whom she believes her husband is having an affair. As damning as the evidence is the jaded actress presents the case as to why this is not as it seems and offers the vulnerable young wife some advice on how to handle such matters in the future: don’t assume the worst.
All this is framed by the device of the radio show. Iman Thambi as the announcer does her perky best to make Jell-O sound delicious and Bob Walters as the Foley man does his best to make all the effects sound believable. Walters’ concentration on his work is a tribute to the craft of theatrical deception.
During the musical interludes Thambi shifts out of her bubbly announcer persona and seems to fall back into herself. Moving ever so slightly to Benny Goodman’s “Sing, Sing, Sing,” giving what seems like a coy glance at the Foley man, and wistfully singing along quietly to the love ballad. These nuances imply an emotion under the surface.
“The Black Swamp Players’ Radio Hour” is a tribute to stage magic and reminds us how much some of us missed it.
