On Demand
Selected Shorts
Sunday, August 24, 2008
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Straying spouses and brave new words.
"God preserve me from the camaraderie of commuter trains…and even from the lovely ladies taking in their asters and their roses at dusk, lest the frost kill them. And from ladies with their heads whirling with civic zeal. I’m off to Torino, where the girls love peanut butter, and the world is a man’s castle.”
Good works and marital chaos in the suburbs, and SELECTED SHORTS celebrates adult literacy.
- John Cheever, “The Trouble of Marcie Flint”
John Cheever has been called “the Chekhov of the suburbs” and his dozens of stories about the bemused denizens of America’s various groves and glades have been justly celebrated. Perhaps is most famous is the disquieting odyssey “The Swimmer,” featured on SHORTS several seasons ago. This program’s “The Trouble of Marcie Flint” is less well known, but has some of the same elements of turmoil beneath security. His short story collections included "The Way Some People Live," "The Enormous Radio and Other Stories" and "The Housebreaker of Shady Hill." His "Stories of John Cheever" won the 1979 Pulitzer Prize for Fiction. “Marcie Flint” is read by one of SHORTS’ regular leading men, the distinguished actor Fritz Weaver. Weaver’s many film, television and theater credits include his Tony Award winning performance in "Child’s Play," the musical "Baker Street," in which he played Sherlock Holmes, the films "Marathon Man" and "Black Sunday" and the television series "Law & Order." Weaver took a moment to talk with us about his career, and the relish with which he reads short stories. You’ll hear his thoughts after the story.
The second half of this program is devoted to a project very dear to the heart of host Isaiah Sheffer: the adult literacy program “All Write!” which brings together an international group of students learning to write in English, and challenges them to create their own stories to be read by some of SHORTS’ revolving repertory company. We feature four stories on this program — touching and humorous accounts of modern life in the newly-minted words of their authors.
"The Trouble of Marcie Flint," by John Cheever, read by Fritz Weaver
Selections from “All Write!” read by Sydia Cedeno, Ruben Santiago Hudson, and Isaiah Sheffer. For additional works featured on SELECTED SHORTS, please visit Symphony Space
"The Trouble of Marcie Flint," by John Cheever, read by Fritz Weaver
Selections from “All Write!” read by Sydia Cedeno, Ruben Santiago Hudson, and Isaiah Sheffer. For additional works featured on SELECTED SHORTS, please visit Symphony Space
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Fritz Weaver's delivery of the John Cheever story (“The Trouble of Marcie Flint") was just AWFUL. He read too fast, sounded like an alligator booming across the swamps. Cheever's work is Chekhovian and requires a thoughtful delivery: his prose prospers when the reader moves at tempo moderato. I was so rattled by all the bellowing that I had to re-read the story to understand what it was about. Furthermore, FW's slurping of water in mid-read should have been edited out.
You've done this before. You had John Lithgow read a lovely Roald Dahl piece much too dramatically, He shrieked, chewed scenery. It would have been more enjoyable if he had been allowed to use a quieter, nastier tone. (I mean "nastier" in the nicest way: Lithgow is good at that.)
This Adult Literacy program you are supporting is marvelously embarrassing. I've participated in similar efforts and found many nuggets in the gravel: you really haven't.
Does anyone know why this episode was uploaded twice in itunes? There's one from 8/24 that has different punctuation and descriptors in the summary compared to the one uploaded on 8/27. The reason I ask is because one is 59:13 and the other is 59:22 and I was wondering if maybe they edited something/cut something off and which one I should bother listening to.
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