The Decline Of Spengler

The Decline Of Spengler

Series
WBAI And NPR Playhouse
Original Broadcast Date
1983
Cast
Barbara Sohmers, Joseph Palmieri, Lester Nafzger, Irene Wagner, Tim Jerome, Leslie Cass, David Rapkin, Rosemary Foley, Charles Potter, Arthur Miller, Brother Theodore, Joe Frank
Format
1 hour
Chronology
Preceded by:	The End
Followed by:	The Queen Of Puerto Rico

"Hoffman died today."

The Decline of Spengler is the name of a program Joe Frank produced as part of the series WBAI And NPR Playhouse. It was originally broadcast in 1983.

Synopsis

• Hoffman dies in surgery
• Joe ponders technology and society on a plane. Robot stewardess.
• Joe dreams he is a doctor on horseback. Hoffman's funeral and the fountain of youth is in Florida.
• Dream: film of Austria with weapons demos.
• Human centrifuge and fast-moving-foods dialog.
• Dream: Joe is a lawyer before a jury of prophets and seers.
• Joe gets cold call from Mrs. Waterman, they go to hotel, she is in a wheelchair (monologue, followed by actress).
• A doctor is called to a hotel where an operation is performed on him.
• A German engineer is mistakenly trapped on a train bound for a concentration camp, he escapes and finds the messiah.
• A three act play about a film about a man who loses his memory, emerges from the screen and is shot. The shooter than begs the projectionist to run the film backwards. Later a muffled telephone conversation accompanies a theological debate.
• A doctor dismisses a patient in a call-in medical program.
• Old people at a beach chat. Joe visits the zaddik of Rome.
• The messiah talks about time and decay, denies responsibility.
• Joe imagines a life married to a woman in Tampa who finds Jesus.
• Cleaning out Hoffman's room, finding a ticket to a rocket ship launch in Dreamland, ending up crashed in the swamp hundreds of years in the future.
• Nonsense monologue.

Expand

== Legacy Synposis ==

• Hoffman dies in surgery
• Joe ponders technology and society on a plane. Robot stewardess.
• Joe dreams he is a doctor on horseback. Hoffman's funeral and the fountain of youth is in Florida.
• Dream: film of Austria with weapons demos.
• Human centrifuge and fast-moving-foods dialog.
• Dream: Joe is a lawyer before a jury of prophets and seers.
• Joe gets cold call from Mrs. Waterman, they go to hotel, she is in a wheelchair (monologue, followed by actress).
• A doctor is called to a hotel where an operation is performed on him.
• A German engineer is mistakenly trapped on a train bound for a concentration camp, he escapes and finds the messiah.
• A three act play about a film about a man who loses his memory, emerges from the screen and is shot. The shooter than begs the projectionist to run the film backwards. Later a muffled telephone conversation accompanies a theological debate.
• A doctor dismisses a patient in a call-in medical program.
• Old people at a beach chat. Joe visits the zaddik of Rome.
• The messiah talks about time and decay, denies responsibility.
• Joe imagines a life married to a woman in Tampa who finds Jesus.
• Cleaning out Hoffman's room, finding a ticket to a rocket ship launch in Dreamland, ending up crashed in the swamp hundreds of years in the future.
• Nonsense monologue.

Music

• "I Wish You Love" - Andre Kostelanetz And His Orchestra (from I Wish You Love, 1964) | YouTube
• "Music For 18 Musicians" - Steve Reich (from Music For 18 Musicians, 1978) | YouTube
• "Diamond Dust" - Jeff Beck (from Blow By Blow, 1975) | YouTube

Commentary

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