By Marissa Massare, Living & Arts Editor
For many years, Susquehanna’s radio station WQSU 88.9 has rebroadcasted the classic “War of the Worlds,” but this year will feature an extra special production.
WQSU will play the annual radio rebroadcast on Oct. 31 at 9 p.m. and will be followed by a stage adaptation of story that will be performed by Raconteur Radio at 7 p.m. on Nov. 2 in Degenstein Center Theater.
The theatrical stage version of “The War of the Worlds,” adapted by Orson Welles, is sponsored by an anonymous Susquehanna donor.
The event sponsor, a 1968 alumnus, was one of the founders of the radio station on campus. He described that he had been “a radio junkie forever.”
He got hooked on the power of these radio recreations from one of his former high school teachers. This teacher played a one-minute radio recreation excerpt and asked students to describe the setting, just by listening to this clip.
“It was amazing how many different interpretations there were,” the event sponsor said. “We all heard the same thing and in our minds we started designing a scene.”
The alum sponsoring the event decided to sponsor it because “the underlying message is valuable, and not about politics. It has everything to do with encouraging generations to have an open mind to asking critical questions, to be critical, and don’t always accept everything as factual,” he said. As with Welles’ original rebroadcast, even though it was pure fiction, millions believed it to be true.
This will be the 81st anniversary of Welles’ original radio adaptation of Wells’ “The War of the Worlds.” It was originally broadcasted on Oct. 30, 1938 when it terrified parts of the United States.
The underlying message of “The War of the Worlds” was the power of the media to transfix people’s attention on a mystical event that’s not really happening, but made it seem real.
People panicked because the east coast was coming off a major hurricane in September 1938. It hit the northeast and the damage was catastrophic. A lot of the news reporting of the hurricane came by virtue of the radio. During this timeframe, Hitler was also coming to power at the tail end of the Great Depression and the world was undoubtedly filled with a lot of tension. In this stage of panic, more and more people relied on the radio.
During Welles’ original broadcast, listeners were informed during the beginning, middle and end that it wasn’t real and was completely farcical, ending with a phrase that told listeners to enjoy their Halloween. People questioned it, however, and stormed out of their houses out of fear.
After the event, press, especially newspapers, had a lot of power. People became subservient to newspapers. Congress became involved, people threatened legal action and there were a couple of deaths after what people called the panic broadcast.
Raconteur Radio gives life to “The War of the Worlds.” Audience members in attendance can expect to see theatrical lighting, vintage radio equipment, time period costumes and extensive scientific sound effects.
Ironically enough, Raconteur Radio is a northern New Jersey based theatrical company. “The New York Times” called Raconteur Radio “family friendly guerilla theater.”
Raconteur Radio stages theatrical productions of vintage radio plays, classic literature and pop culture parodies for their audiences. They do reinterpretations, but take literary license to change things, to add a smile here or there, the event sponsor mentioned.
Raconteur Radio has previously performed “The War of the Worlds” in New Jersey and will perform “Harry Potter & The Goblet of Fire” and “A Christmas Carol” in the upcoming Thanksgiving and Christmas seasons.
Attendees that arrive early to the stage event will have access to a video presentation that gives a historical background of “The War of the Worlds.” The event sponsor strongly encourages audiences to be in their seat by at least a quarter until 7 p.m. so they don’t miss the pre-show video that gives crucial background to the history of what was going on in the world at the time.
A question and answer session will conclude the performance and audience members will have the opportunity to meet the actors that represent the show and Raconteur Radio.
Senior advancement officer at Susquehanna, Chris Markle, encourages students to attend. “There’s no ticket and it’s absolutely free,” he said, “It’ll be a great start to their post-Halloween Saturday night.”
Markle thinks the show will be something that Susquehanna students will learn from, and that they can take away the power of the story, which reinforces this year’s campus theme, “the power of stories.”
“The whole story is what counts,” the event sponsor said. He wants the audience to ask themselves the question: “Have I told the total story?”
He also mentioned that there’s a certain piece of people that is starting to not fully develop the creativeness in their minds, which is a skill of those who write the narrative for the broadcast. He believes that thinking creatively, and especially by exposing themselves to new ways of thinking through these radio rebroadcasts, people can uncover the whole story.
The event sponsor hopes that the production will “open some people’s minds to a way of thinking.” He added, “Secondly, if you’re interested in writing creatively for the stage or books or what have you, this creates a scene, a setting in people’s minds which is very, very important.”
