"The Halloween Trilogy"

October 21, 2017 — The Winnipesaukee Playhouse in Meredith, New Hampshire, presented its annual pre-Halloween Radio Variety Hour, a staged reproduction of an old-time radio drama, always one of the spooky variety, complete with commercials for Lifebuoy Soap, Carter's Little Liver Pills, and other products from the 1940's. This presentation, three plays in an hour without intermission, was entitled "The Halloween Trilogy," assembled by Cecilia Fannon and John de Lancie, directed for the Playhouse by John Piquado, and featuring the Winni Players Community Theatre actors, each playing multiple roles.

The three dramas were "The Cask of Amontillado" by Edgar Allan Poe, "The Canterville Ghost" by Oscar Wilde, and "Mark of the Beast" by Rudyard Kipling. The actors are seated on folding chairs at the back of the stage until called to the microphone to speak their parts. The host (Pat Jansen) introduces each drama and signals the actors to come to the microphone where they wait for her cue to speak. Off to the left, the foley artist, or sound technician (Lord Adam Young), provides background sound with a surprising variety of noise-making equipment.

Actors appearing in this performance were David Bownes, Andrew Burke, Steve Copithorne, Gail Ledger, Delaney Andrews, Jim Gocha, Dana Gardner and Valerie Kimball. I suspect good actors welcome an opportunity to ham it up and over-act, as they did with marvelous results in this presentation. When the actors are having fun with the material, their enthusiasm tends to spread to the audience, and the audience was delighted with this night's performance.