Gotham Radio Theatre (10/24/15)

This was a terrific program. The members of GRT re-created an episode of the radio drama, “The Adventures of Ellery Queen – The Last Man Club,” with a Bernard Herrmann score played by an 11-piece band. Scott Klavan played Ellery Queen, Laura Leopard was Nikki Porter (and others), Martin McGeachy was Inspector Queen, Ellery’s father (and others), with Vince Trani as Multiple Roles (I’m not making this up, you know). Oh, and just for giggles, Nyssa Duchow, the violinist in the band, popped in as Lucille Cherry, and the conductor, Jacob Thomas Carr, also doubled in a couple of acting roles.

This group has this style down pat—multiple accents coming out of people at the drop of a hat; a “sound effects” table with glasses, spoons, water, shoes (for that clip-clop sound); a little door (for, d’oh!, slamming doors); etc. It was like watching a bona fide 1940s radio studio broadcast. As another cool aside, since this was performed at the Lincoln Center Library for the Performing Arts, they had the actual Bernard Herrmann score on display in the lobby, with the composer’s handwritten cues.

The convoluted case of The Last Man Club was eventually solved by Ellery Queen. Before the murderer was announced (and there may have been an additional clue for us audience members), we were invited to circle our choice on a supplied list of suspects. I voted for the wrong one. SPOILER: Though I doubt you’ll get to see or hear the tale of The Last Man Club, go “la-la-la-la” for awhile. One twist is that the man who was killed was the murderer, even though he didn’t actually murder anyone. As a member of The Last Man Club, he meant to kill the other members in order to achieve financial gain when there was a final disbursement of funds to the club members. (I said ahead of time that it was convoluted.) He swapped out a cut-glass cordial bottle (no labels, only an identifying mark on the bottle) of poisoned créme de menthe for the usual cherry liqueur used for the celebratory toast at the club’s once-a-year meeting.

Ellery solved the case by proving that the murderer had to be color blind; therefore when all of the other suspects were able to be cleared by Inspector Queen via a color-blind visual test, only the dead man was left. The twist was that the dead man was really a victim of a hit-and-run accident, even though it was strongly implied that he had been murdered. His dying breath was a warning to the other club members to be wary of murder, since he wouldn’t be there for the final toast. Ellery saved the day, no one drank the poisoned cordials, and the dead man was unmasked as the (potential) murderer.

The Bernard Herrmann score was terse, and slightly jagged, for dramatic effect. And unlike film scores, it was mostly used as interludes to set up scene breaks, rather than being used as underscoring. It was played and conducted very well, exactly filling the bill it was designed for.

All in all, a really great afternoon of theater and music. I’ll be on the lookout for Gotham Radio Theatre in the future.

ConcertMeister