Sunday, October 23, 2011

Patriotic Peacock Feathers



By Lars Trodson

During the Republican debate that was broadcast on CNN a couple of weeks ago, I began to wonder what message the network was actually trying to convey. Was the debate an opportunity for the candidates to get their views out to the viewing public? Or was it a chance for CNN to tell the world that it was the most patriotic company Ever?

I was asking the question because, as my attention drifted away from what the candidates were saying -- nothing even the most casual observers of politics had not heard before -- I became mesmerized by the set.

Look at that thing! It was a massive display of the stars and stripes. Fields of blue! Stars! America!

Now I am old enough, and interested in politics enough, to have some memory of debates going back to at least the mid-1970s, and I was thinking I had never seen anything quite like this. I didn’t even know if I had seen such a display just four years ago (or was it just three?).

A quick tour of the images from past presidential debates was illustrative. From the first debate in 1960 between Richard Nixon and John F. Kennedy until the 1990s, the decor behind the candidates was actually rather subdued. We’ve compiled a little slideshow for you here.

I know that advancements in digital technology has made a lot of this possible. But, as they say, just because you can doesn’t mean that you should.

The “debates”, as we all know, are a joke; a weak framework for moderators and politicians to strut their stuff, each to their own whims, demonstrating their general disregard for substance and heft.

I know that CNN has been called “liberal” -- which is another way of saying that you are anti-American.

But, really, fellas, you protest too much. I am not the first, nor will I be the last, to ask if there has got to be a better way for us to listen to those running for office.

A good first step, it seems to me, is to not dwarf candidates for the presidency of the United States in a blinding storm of digital patriotic peacock feathers.

A Halloween Treat From Roundtable Pictures


With Halloween fast approaching, we wanted to share an encore presentation of "The Palmstone," an original radio drama written and directed by Lars Trodson and performed by The Radio Players of the Seacoast.

"The Palmstone" aired live here on July 31, 2007, and was serialized over four days.

You can listen to all four parts now, by clicking here.

Trodson said of "The Palmstone" in 2007, "I had been looking for a ghost story to write, in part because I was interested, at the time this project came about, in writing strictly genre pieces. I had written an art heist play -- produced at a local theater -- and written and produced a romantic comedy called “Family Trees”, which was an independent movie we made in 1997. And so I thought one of the things I should try was a ghost story. And a radio play seemed the best way to exercise that desire.

But I couldn’t come up with a good story. Every idea I had I Googled, and discovered I had unintentionally cadged someone else’s story. Frustrated, I started to read old, forgotten ghost story texts in search of inspiration. Anything that would spark a good idea that I could turn into my own.

It was during that time I first read “The Monkey’s Paw.” I was completely enamored of the story, and it is no secret that “The Palmstone” is an adaptation – or, in the parlance of today -- a reimagining of that original story.

I wrote several scripts simply retelling the details of “The Monkey’s Paw” – none of which were satisfactory. Simply put, “The Monkey’s Paw” tells the story of a couple who has in their possession a severed monkey’s paw, a talisman, that allows them three wishes. They use those three wishes, and the results are much more complicated, and horrific, then they could have ever imagined." (You can read more about "The Palmstone" here.)

Wednesday, October 19, 2011

In Memoriam: Norman Corwin, 1910-2011


My great friend and a true inspiration to me has died. LT

Hear Lars Trodson of Roundtable Pictures interview Norman Corwin here.

Read an obituary here.