Writing a play was no vacation

Published 2:00 pm Wednesday, April 20, 2005

Birke Duncan’s radio drama was a feat of revision.

For Birke Duncan, the golden days of radio have returned with a vengeance.

Duncan found the airwaves the perfect medium for “A Long Vacation: A Radio Play,” an original work the author penned with another former islander, Garrett Vance.

Recorded this year and slated to be presented in a live reading April 23, the play has already been heard on KOPN broadcast from Columbia Mo.; on KUNM from Albuquerque, N.M.; and for Firehouse Theater on Bloomington, Indiana’s WFHB.

“The story is so self-contained it couldn’t be a full-length novel,” Duncan said. “A short story would be forgotten, and it couldn’t be a stage play because so much takes place under water.

“I decided that a radio play would set it apart. Not many people do them.”

Radio – a medium that depends on language – may the perfect vehicle for a work about the supernatural, a story enriched by a wealth of concrete detail.

In just a few sentences, the listener dives, with the protagonist “Ray,” an American teaching in Japan, into the underwater dream world of an enchanted vacation:

“Turning his face upward, he saw a figure at the surface with the sun behind. All he saw was a slender black silhouette; long hair billowed around the head like an open fan. Rays of light passed through its dark strands to form a shifting golden halo.”

Duncan, who grew up on Bainbridge Island, was introduced to theater productions at Bainbridge High School, where English teachers Bob McAllister, Ralph Cheadle and Becky Lomax honed his love of language. The educators were strict grammarians and stylists, and that imparted discipline to him.

In 1997, Duncan earned a master’s degree in Scandinavian folklore and mythology at the University of Washington.

At the university, he crossed paths with Vance, a fellow student who also had Bainbridge roots whom Duncan had known since 1981.

Duncan corresponded with Vance from his folklore studies in Norway. And when Vance taught English in Japan, he wrote Duncan his observations, including a memorable vignette about a skin-diving adventure that would help form the kernel of “A Long Vacation.”

After Vance returned, the two often ran into one another. One day in 1996, on the bus ride from downtown Seattle to the University District, Vance told Duncan about a story he was writing for a creative writing class based on his experiences in Japan.

“He told me the story in great detail and asked me if I thought it would work,” Duncan said. “I was amazed by the quality and vividness.”

But, he says, Vance lost confidence in his writing and put the half-finished story aside. The draft languished in a trailer on the writer’s parents’ Bainbridge property until Vance – about to move to Thailand – bequeathed the half-finished piece to Duncan.

“There were scenes missing, there were scenes half-written,” Duncan said. “I spent several hours just trying to get the pages in sequence.”

He sent Vance a copy of the reconstructed story, but his friend was now consumed by a teaching job, so Duncan was left to flesh out the writing.

He adapted the story through many revisions, editing the manuscript – originally a two-hour read – to run less than an hour.

“I took no liberties, except in simplifying,” he said, “so there was less exposition, less narration.”

He chose actors with care, drawing largely from the cast of “Joe Bean,” an original musical Duncan had helped produce here last year.

The cast – com­posed of Ann Wil­kin­son, Ben Babcock, Marie Rubin and Michael Leonard, with cameo appearances by Kelsey, Emily, Kate and Ian Mackin – also helped shape the work, as did creative consultant Jason Harris.

The actors recorded at Trillium Studios on Bainbridge. Sound effects, which included everything from opening rice paper screen doors to a chorus of cicadas, had to be added next.

“Recording the actors didn’t take long at all,” Duncan said. “The rest did. We spent two weeks mixing sound effects, dialogue and music. We had help from a brilliant engineer, Chris Eberly.

“I did not want the sound effects to be the star. The story should be the star. The story is first, the story is everything.”

Once the play was on compact disc, Duncan had a marketing inspiration – he sent copies around the country to 15 radio troupes that produce radio plays. Nearly half expressed interest in airing the polished product.

“I learned from freelance (writing) that if you submit a script for production, then the message you’re sending is ‘please go to work for me at your expense and pay me for it,” Duncan said. “By sending them a complete production we’re saying ‘we’ve done all the work – you can take the day off.’”

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Theater of the mind

A live performance of “A Long Vacation: A Radio Play” by Garrett Vance and Birke Duncan, based on a novella by Vance, will be presented in a free reading at 4 p.m. April 23 at the Bainbridge library. Principal cast members include Ann Wilkinson, Marie Rubin, Michael Leonard and Ben Babcock. “A Long Vacation: A Radio Play” is available on CD at Eagle Harbor Book Company. Call 842-4162 for information.