Great friend to the Sonic Summerstock Playhouse, Dr. Mark Dreisonstok brings his latest review to one of our exciting holiday entries.
Audio Review: ‘Back for Christmas’ by the Sole Twin Audio Network
It is now early January. Do you want to go briefly “Back for Christmas?” The loosely holiday-themed story by John Collier of that name may be just for you! “Back for Christmas” is a classic mystery tale which was dramatized on the legendary television series “Alfred Hitchcock Presents” and “Roald Dahl’s Tales of the Unexpected.” The thriller was presented no less than three times on the radio series “Suspense” as well. This is the version Sole Twin Audio Network director Rachel Pulliam dramatizes in her new audio production.
The restrained sound effects and atmospheric music, like the acting, evoke a suspenseful mood throughout the production.
In this memorable tale of a seemingly conventional, middle-class English couple, Hermione, wife of botany professor, Herbert Carpenter, plans a get together with friends before they depart for the professor’s lecture tour to America. Espying a far more compatible and romantic relationship with bookseller Marion Markham on the horizon, Herbert is at wit’s end with Hermione, who has over-managed his every step in their married life. “You need companionship,” says Miss Markham, “someone sympathetic with your work—but the last thing on earth you need is a manager.” “How well you put it,” Herbert says to her, as he begins to contemplate the murder of his wife and intones malevolently: “The last thing on earth.”
As the macabre plot unfolds, Herbert tells his intended victim, Hermione: “I’ve managed to get hold of the spores of several, unclassified wild orchids. In their wild state, they bloom under damp masses of leafmold. The Aurucanian Indians call them devil-flowers because they appear to bloom under the ground.” These “devil-flowers,” to be planted in a dark and dank cellar, turn out to be part of Herbert’s devilish plot to escape his henpecked status under Hermione and perhaps begin a new life in America with Marion. As for what all this has to do with the holidays and the various meanings of “Back for Christmas,” the listener will have to settle back and hear the surprise ending of this “tale well calculated to keep you in suspense,” as announcer Dean T. Moody effectively evinces the earlier series.
Jerry Kokich is wonderful in the part of Professor Carpenter, sounding, at moments, erudite and professorial, meek in his interactions with Hermione, and finally sinister in Herbert’s determination to do away with his wife. Mel Rose is excellent as a demanding and insistent Hermione, yet conveying some sympathy for her character as well. Alexa Chipman turns in a fine performance as Marion, sounding first as an innocent interlocutor with Herbert and then presenting more ambiguity later in the drama, leading us to wonder if Marion will be the answer to the professor’s unhappy home life, or if she, too, will become as irritable to Herbert as Hermione.
Director Rachel Pulliam frequently casts herself in cameo roles in her productions, a bit like Hitchcock did in his films. This time around, she is convincing as a hotel clerk when Professor Carpenter arrives in America. The restrained sound effects and atmospheric music, like the acting, evoke a suspenseful mood throughout the production. Listeners may be further reminded of Hitchcock by some of the music in the program which offers reworked themes by Bernard Herrmann, Hitchcock’s composer in several of the director’s seminal films.
Running Time: Approximately one half hour.
Briefly go “Back for Christmas” and open your post-holiday present, gratis online.
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