Icebox Radio Theater, August 2006, revived May 2013
A supernatural thriller from the Minnesota-based
radio theatre company.
In the 1950s there was evidently a vogue for building statues in American cities. In one Minnesota town,
close to the border of Ontario, the local authority built one of Smokey Bear; now it dominates the landscape.
This thriller (unfortunately
uncredited to any specific writer) imagined a situation where the statue assumed a life of its own and went off into the forest
- apparently to cause havoc. At least, this is what the local burghers think, as they try to come to terms with what
seems a supernatural event. Initially, of course, they do not believe what has happened; it is only down to the persistence
of a little girl, Heather (Rachel Adams) who refuses to listen to her father, the local law enforcement operative, and goes
off in search of the statue. The play has its own morality scheme - based
around the idea of "curiosity killed the cat" - but eventually Heather's persistence is vindicated.
With its own sound-effects and
some very convincing acting, Tall Bears is definitely worth a listen.
