Radio’s Joe Frank Ventures Onto Stage

If you liked Joe Frank on the radio, get ready for Joe Frank--on stage.

This weekend, KCRW’s popular storyteller (“Work in Progress�) opens at the Museum of Contemporary Art (MOCA) in the solo piece “Joe Frank: In Performance,� written by Frank and directed by film producer Paula Mazur.

“I’m going to appear live on stage with props, music, music on tape, and voices that’ll come out of speakers--with whom I’ll engage in dialogue,� said Frank. “There are three basic subjects: sex, power and spirituality . . . or love, work and the need for some kind of meaning. There will be wild moments, thoughtful, frenetic, reflective and quiet moments. I hope it’ll amuse people--and move them.�

His incognito radio work, Frank noted, has had its own advantages.

“You get to develop a kind of intimacy that you can’t with any other medium,� he explained. “It’s a very direct kind of relationship--although, of course, it’s sort of one-way. But I do imagine myself talking to somebody, some generic listener: Joe Listener,� Frank said. “But (his identity) varies. I get letters from old people, people in high school, prisons. I don’t have any particular audience.�

The idea to physically place himself in front of an audience began last year when the writer/performer was invited to discuss his work at 72 Market Street’s Saturday afternoon lecture series.

“I decided I didn’t want to talk about my radio show,� he said. “I didn’t want to demystify it, explain what I do. I also didn’t want to talk about why I do it, because whenever I see artists talking about themselves and their work, it always seems to trivialize it. So instead of doing a lecture, I decided to do a performance. I’d always wanted to do it and thought it might be fun. I ended up (using) what I felt were some of the strongest monologues, and those with a comic bent.�

A few days before the show, pre-performance jitters struck.

“I thought it was going to be a disaster,� he admitted. “But when I got up in front of the audience, I had an amazing experience. It was extraordinarily uplifting and exhilarating. They loved the show; they were rolling in the aisles. And for the first time, I could hear it . I experienced the response. In radio, you’re in a vacuum. So doing it in front of a live audience, I really had a relationship with people--and it affected the way I performed.�

Regardless of the medium (a theatrical adaptation of his “Rent a Family, Part One� is ongoing at Stages), Frank’s own persona is unchanged.

“It’s the same sensibility,� he stressed, “the same aesthetic. The only thing is: On radio, you can tell a one-hour story about some event in your life. I don’t think you can do that on stage. There’s also considerably more of a comic slant to this material; the stories are shorter. It isn’t as if I, Joe Frank, am going to get on stage and tell a bunch of unrelated stories. It’s about one character, (told) from the point of view of this Joe Frank-ish guy.�

High as he is on this new detour, the writer/performer is burning no bridges when it comes to radio.

“Radio is what I know,� he said, “it’s brought me wherever I am. Now, it may be that radio is really the medium I should be in--that this adventure is really (just) an adventure. Then I’ll go back and do radio. I don’t know how this is going to evolve. I’ve been on radio for 10 years, so it’s exciting to try something new. But I just received a major CPB (Corporation for Public Broadcasting) grant, so unless I want to give the money back, I’ll probably be back.�

CRITICAL CROSSFIRE: John Olive’s “The Voice of the Prairie,� a gentle drama of radio storytelling in an earlier era, is playing at the Back Alley Theatre in Van Nuys. Bob Clark directs Rachel Babcock, Gretchen Corbett, Ronny Cox, Barry Gordon, John M. Johnson, Dick O’Neill and Bobby Zameroski.

The Times’ Sylvie Drake found “a Frank Capra play--in tone, not derivation. Olive owns it exclusively. It may not be much more than a deft and witty valentine to a pioneer spirit and to the value of words, but that suffices. It’s fun, it has a knowing heart and a voice to delight all within earshot.�

Said the L.A. Reader’s Susan Armine: “Olive’s expertly crafted story of a sweet-but-slippery entrepreneur and the shy tale spinner whom he makes a star is humorous, nostalgic, educational, deeply moving. Clark’s brisk direction and a first-rate cast show how imagination and reality can become inseparable over the airwaves and in our lives.�

From Kathleen O’Steen in Daily Variety: “Clark has carefully crafted a production that adheres to the spirit (of radio’s early days), reaching out to its audiences through sterling character portrayals and moments of sentiment that never stray beyond endurable bounds. The unaffected manner in which the stories are told and overlap is to this show’s credit.�

The Daily News’ Tom Jacobs disagreed. “Olive delights us on occasion with some nice, poetic dialogue. But telling two equally balanced stories presents some problems he has not solved . . . In the hands of Clark, it comes across as an occasionally inspired, often banal play that is in need of some editing and reshaping.�

Noted Drama-Logue’s Richard Scaffidi: “ ‘Voice’ seems at first to be merely a pleasant little play, but gradually one becomes aware that a deeper chord is being touched. There is a metamorphosis from quaintness and cornfield humor into stirring folklore. It’s the difference between hayseed caricatures and heartland characters, between a plot and a tale.�

And from Ed Kaufman in the Hollywood Reporter: “ ‘Voice of the Prairie’ is a rare gem of a show, one that is touching and tender. It’s also full of the awe and mystery of an early America that still had a sense of innocence and wonder about things . . . The entire cast is absolutely wonderful.�