These programs were given at the Munroe Theatre located at Hofstra University on Long Island, NY on October 9, and a viewing of his performance at Crawfordsville High School in Crawfordsville, Indiana on October 30 in the same year.
Many selections are from Jonathan Frid’s Fools and Fiends and some are taken from his other two main programs as well as selected pieces not ordinarily seen in the main shows.
As one learns in viewing these shows they are always different in subtle ways and in this case the performance in Indiana included two pieces not seen in the Long Island shows. Thus by seeing productions at two separate venues, it was possible to observe performances of 14 different poems or short stories.
In "Fools and Fiends" Jonathan Frid, the storyteller, is heavily on display. Frid the actor is much in evidence as well, especially so in the "The Tempest", "The Cask of Amontillado" and "The Tell-Tale Heart" where much of the action takes place away from the lectern, seemingly, with little notice being given to the script covering the show’s wide ranging tales.
The show begins with Richard Hughes’ surreal short story, "The Ghost." This adult ghost story could easily have come fresh from a police blotter in the Domestic Violence Section of the local PD Denny, the haunted husband, provides the point of view for the action of this piece, but his wife, Janie, inspires his every move. Frid adds to the fun of this twisting tale by including some chilling vocal effects ranging from shrieks and moans to maniacal laughter when The Ghost seeks to make the world aware of his existence. In the end, we learn that the actor/story teller has played the role of Pied Piper quite effectively, setting up his audience for the final turn of events so well that is seems this outcome can’t be so, that there must be some mistake. Yet, there is no mistake, except, of course, for the one that was intended all along.
In this version of "Fools and Fiends" the next selection is a series of verses from Ogden Nash - a commentary on the limits of virtue. Frid delivers Nash’s snappy verse with just the touch of irony needed to convey the writer’s cryptic messages. With the line, "Purity is obscurity," Frid uses Nash to demonstrate that what the world idealizes as pure and good is not at all what it prizes when doling out life’s secular rewards. And, he adds a note of humor when he reveals the high cost of reciting the verses of Ogden Nash – three dollars per verse. At that price, he observes, he gets more mileage from Nash’s wisdom by talking about it than he gets from actually reciting it.
"Quick, An Ambulance!" is a rapid gun story written by Manuel Deren about an ambulance chasing lawyer out to make a dishonest buck. Translated by the performer himself from its original Spanish – loosely – it depicts the temptations of easy fortune as seen through the eyes of the avaricious attorney and his erstwhile partner in crime, the supposed victim. In the end they both get their just deserts when the price of securing their ill-gotten gains becomes more than even the larceny in the heart of the would-be client can take when the comes face to face with the possible down side of this little caper. Frid tweaks the legal profession with glee – a common thread throughout this version of "Fools and Fiends" – a cadence that itself conveys that two conspirators are engaging in a hustle. Creating mood and tone with his voice and body language, Frid both communicates a message and inspires titters of laughter from the audience when he spins this yarn.
Steven King’s "The Man Who Loves Flowers" has the sound and mood of a loves story, yet, lurking beneath the young lover’s smile is a seriously troubled soul. Frid is especially effective in painting the picture of the protagonist of this tale as he interacts with the flower vendor and other common folk from the neighborhood – each in turn portraying a slice of urban life both romantic and cynical as they, too, encourage the young man to pursue the object of his affections. You can virtually smell the tea roses and see the delicate stalks of baby’s breath used to adorn the bouquet that the street vendor, caught up in the romance of the moment, prepares for the young lover’s best girl. JF engages the audience by leading them to see the purity of the listener right past the foreshadowing of the ill-fated courtship. The finale is marked with a room filling anguished voice and large demonstrative gestures as we finally learn the truth behind this dark fairy tale. Finally, duped and breathless, the audience braced itself for the next emotional roller coaster.
The next ride veered in a whole new direction, at least in setting, as a world weary educator laments the fruits of her labors. "I Taught Them All" from the Wisconsin Newsletter is a snap shot of the array of young faces, both bright and dull, that fill the days of an inner city schoolteacher's career. First we view the students in their youth and innocence and then we hear what became of them - all predictable, the result of traits seen by the teacher when they were children. And, all monuments to the futility of trying to influence their fates with the meager tools of English grammar drills and the elements of sentence structure. Frid portrays the horror of weariness in this piece as he uses a hollowed and exhausted voice to convey the storyteller's frustrations. Horror, is the over-arching theme of all of "Fools and Fiends", and Frid demonstrates over and over how broad the spectrum of horror truly is.
That spectrum of horror reaches its ironic heights in the next tale, Irwin Shaw's, "The Girls In Their Summer Dresses". The setting is New York City a few decades ago, but the horror is timeless. It is the unexpected horror of facing reality when a middle-aged couple begin to reveal to each other their worst fears and earnest denials regarding the true state of their relationship. Frid considers this piece the true horror tale of this show - no violence, no blood, no dank and forbidding cellars, just the truth, in its horrible raw form, as the couple slowly reveals to each other that things aren't, and never have been, what they pretended to each other that they were. As Frid always explains to his audience, he is not a female impersonator, so, he never seeks to do a female voice, per se, but he does suggest it in pitch and tone. This he does effectively as the dialogue between husband and wife bounces back and forth as they go deeper and deeper into their new candor regarding their previously masked feelings. The audience can feel the wife's tension build as she insists her husband confess his guilty pleasures regarding other women. Ultimately, she forces her squirming and pleading mate to acknowledge where his latent desires will inevitably lead. It is the horror of a simple truth, unmasked and unforgettable, that Frid is exposing in this quiet but intense story and the audience matches his intensity with their own uneasy quiet, just listening, drawn in and captivated, not by big drama or gory imagery, but by the simple horror of everyday life, the kind of horror many of them may face behind the curtains of their own ordinary lives.
To be continued
The next piece is a new addition to JF's repertoire and is not so much a horror tale as a self-deprecating exercise in self-revelation. Frid describes Stephen Leacock's "The Retroactive Existence of Mr. Juggins" as the piece in his stock of stories that most closely resembles his own personality. It is also the first time that Frid has included the work of a fellow countryman. Thus, the Canadian storyteller turns to a Canadian author to provide a vehicle to reveal to the audience how his own mind works in his own curious journey in search of perfection. The audience roars as Juggins, the erstwhile Fridian alter-ego seeks full knowledge and understanding of each element of his goal before he feels prepared to take his first forward step. Again, cadence and tones of exasperation, lead the audience to wind backward with the storyteller as he chases the Holy Grail - in reverse gear! At the end, the audience is thoroughly amused and the storyteller has both enlightened his audience about himself and invited the audience to see itself in this little hall of mirrors.
The Juggins interlude gives the audience a chance to relax and catch its breath. Something they need before launching into Edgar Allan Poe's "The Cask of Amontillado". Frid teases the audience that many regard his Poe pieces as virtual national anthems - salutes to the spirit of his famous television pedigree - and, so, as befits any such occasion of solemnity, he announces he will stand while delivering the Poe classic. "Cask" is a tale of bitterness, vengeance and deadly retribution for the insults visited on the story teller by the reviled Fortunado. The basics of the story have been played out in many television and movie reinterpretations of the tale, including those seen on "Dark Shadows" - where Frid's character played, in turn, the killer and the condemned antagonist - and by Alfred Hitchcock in his classic version of the horrors of the mind in Alfred Hitchcock Presents in the early days of television.
Frid's interpretation here is the dramatic action highlight of the first act of "Fools and Fiends". His voice soars in agony and grumbles in defiance as Fortunado slowly comes to realize that the mouse has ensnared the falcon. There is no joke and there is no escape, he has been bested by one he thought to be his inferior. The protagonist, of course, is quite mad, but it is the madness of cunning and guile borne of humiliation and JF plays that role with equal conviction. Frid's portrayal of the protagonist's voice is made even more griping in that it betrays no hint of the insanity the character's behavior makes manifest, it is the voice of everyman - sure of the rightness of his cause. Convinced that justice and his own twisted version of God's will is being done. This is all made chillingly clear in the death scene. The condemned Fortunado begs for mercy, screaming out for it with the plea, "For the love of God!" The madman denies mercy with equal conviction;seeing his acts as righteous vengeance, and thus echos the condemned man's words in mocking support of his own murderous actions, "Yes, for the love of God."
"Cask" is yet another example of how Frid's storytelling skills mesh with his acting skills to great effect. There is much in the way of characterization and physical action given to the two characters in his rendition of the story as Frid uses gestures and mime to help depict the physical environs of the tomb as it is constructed. Then he fills in the scene - its forbidding odors and dampness - with the word pictures Poe provided with a vividness that lest the audience visualize a full blown set. You can virtually see the smoky torch as it is dropped over the last opening in the wall, filling the death chamber with smoke and heat and the last light the condemned and catatonic victim will ever experience. Yet, nothing is really there, it is all in the mind's eye as the actor, as with all the other pieces, is standing on a barren stage without props or scenery, portraying everything with nothing but his own voice and body and the use of the audience's imagination.