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Terror brought down to earth

American Stage uses your imagination against you in The War of the Worlds, favoring the power of suggestion over the pull of special effects.

By MARTY CLEAR
Published October 20, 2005

[Times photo: Lara Cerri]

From left, American Stage actors Bryan Barter, David Silter, Byron Patterson, Christopher Swan and Brian Shea are transfixed by a mysterious meteorite in a scene from American Stage’s The War of the Worlds. The stage adaptation retains most of the original language of the Orson Welles radio play.

ST. PETERSBURG - Turning the most famous radio play in history into a stage show presents some daunting challenges.

After all, it was the audience's imagination that made Orson Welles' 1938 production of The War of the Worlds so compelling that, at least according to legend, it sparked national panic and prompted suicide attempts. Film versions of the same story of a Martian invasion - including the Tom Cruise vehicle of earlier this year - have been less effective.

So when the people at American Stage decided to translate the radio drama into a more visual medium, they had to tread carefully.

Their solution was to tamper as little as possible with the original, to rely on Welles' words rather than special effects.

"It is 99.9 percent of the actual language that was presented in the 1938 radio play," said Brian Shea, one of five actors in the new production, which opens this weekend. "I really believe we have preserved the essential element of the radio play, that you have to bring your imagination into it. You never see the monsters. You see the actors seeing the monsters."

American Stage artistic director Todd Olson adapted the radio play, written by Howard Koch and Welles and based on a sci-fi classic by H.G. Wells.

"Originally I thought I'd go back to the H.G. Wells novel," Olson said. "But gradually I realized the beauty of the Howard Koch and Orson Welles version."

To translate the radio play for the stage, Olson opted to begin the action in 1938, in the studio, as the actors are beginning the fabled broadcast. But they gradually morph into the actual characters at the scene of the invasion, and leave the studio behind.

"It's half radio play and it's half theater," Olson said. "It's not a film and it's not all special effects, but it's very theatrical."

The War of the Worlds was a late addition to the American Stage season. There was a gap between shows, and Olson decided that the play that gave the entire country the heebie-jeebies 67 years ago would make a strong addition for the Halloween season.

The new production is plenty scary, Olson and Shea both said, but there were deeper psycho-sociological reasons for the current effectiveness of the script.

In 1938, the beginnings of World War II were making Americans feel uneasy about the threat of enemy attacks on our soil. After a postwar half-century of relative security at home, we're once again feeling vulnerable.

"It taps into that feeling of tension and terror," Shea said. "In 1938, and now, there's a sense of, "Oh my God, this really can happen."'

The War of the Worlds, Friday through Oct. 30 at American Stage. 7:30 p.m. Tuesday, Wednesday and Thursday, 8 p.m. Friday, 3 and 8 p.m. Saturday, 3 p.m. Sunday. $21-$34 for adults, $7.50 for under 16. "Pay What You Can" night, Tuesday, Oct. 25. Student Rush tickets $10, 30 minutes before curtain. Call 727 823-7529 or go to www.americanstage.org

[Last modified October 19, 2005, 10:43:05]