BWW Reviews: Holiday Cheer with THE WYNOT RADIO THEATRE SHOW at FAC

Take a trip back to the golden era when radio drama ruled the airwaves. It was a time of thrilling adventures, chilling suspense, and fast-pasted comic banter. A time when men were men, women were dames, and nobody complained if a baby was a cigarette mascot.

Okay, so maybe some things weren't as wonderful as others. But at The WYNOT Radio Theatre Show, it's all in good fun.

The comedy troupe has set up shop at the Fine Arts Center for the holidays, inviting audiences to a live broadcast of a "nineteen forty-something" radio program, complete with drama, suspense, commercials ("Fizz-Boy Soda: the soda that blows!"), politically incorrect ethnic caricatures, and laughs aplenty. Over the course of the ninety-minute show, the quintet of players (Cory Moosman, Sammy Gleason, Taylor Cardinal, Jonathan Eberhardt, and Casiena Raether) use props, costumes, and their own versatile talents to portray a cavalcade of characters in a parody of hard-boiled detective stories and other stock serial drama types.

Each performance consists of two stories: one chosen at random by an audience member, and one which changes each weekend of the run. Thursday's performance consisted of "The Last Buckaroo," a Lone Ranger-type serial about a mysterious stranger and his faithful Indian companion fighting for law and order (and coffee) in the Old West, and "Death Wore Elevator Shoes," a noir yarn featuring private detective Rick Luger (Moosman, channeling the essence of a cynical, metaphor-spouting gumshoe) tracking down a killer with a penchant for brutality and bad puns. (On subsequent weeks, Rick Luger will return in "It Came Upon a Midnight Deadly" and "The Smoking Gun Affair.") The send-ups of the genres are about what you'd expect, and the humor is very similar to a Whose Line Is It Anyway? game, or the earlier Zucker brothers movies: there's lots of wordplay, double entendre, self-referential meta-commentary, and just enough crass comedy to give it some spice. The dialogue moves fast, but don't worry if you miss a joke-there's more where it came from.

With FAC's big holiday musical Mary Poppins going on at the same time, WYNOT Radio Theatre may seem like small potatoes in comparison. But it's worth taking a trek upstairs to the Music Room for this shot of nostalgic entertainment.

THE WYNOT RADIO THEATRE SHOW runs now through December 28th at the Fine Arts Center, Thursdays through Saturdays at 8pm and Sundays at 3pm. For tickets, call the box office at 719-634-5583 or visit csfineartscenter.org.