Mateo Falcone

When a man kills his son, it is incredible. But when a man kills his son for being inhospitable it becomes absurd. Nevertheless, the WHRB Radio Workshop tried last night to make listeners believe that Mateo Falcone could kill his son for breaking the family's holy tradition of "hospitality" by turning a criminal over to the police. That WHRB did not quite succeed in twenty minutes is understandable; that they tried and came close is most commendable.

Much of the credit goes to Colgate Salisbury who played the title role of the father. Unlike most of the cast, Salisbury understood that a simple Italian peasant need not be stupid to be rustic. Tom Gervasi, as his son, was properly whining and greedy as the boy who gave away a man's life for a gold watch. Steve Aaron gave a surprisingly believable rendition of the Padre who advises Falcone that God alone should punish his son.

The rest of the cast is rendered ineffective, by the script and the direction, both handled by Steve Salomon. The original French short story by Prosper Merime is difficult enough to believe, but Salomon added to this original fault by making much of the dialogue painfully simple, and by overworking both the theme and meanings through constant narration.

Salomon did take advantage of radio's ability to switch scenes with a simple moment of silence. But his writing was usually the "tell them, don't show" type which never allows the listener to really get to know the characters. Instead, the narrator is constantly saying what the characters themselves should show through their words and intonations.

If WHRB can give better material to its talented actors, an already interesting experiment in radio drama would become much more satisfying.