Either Or (Part 2)

Series
In The Dark
Original Broadcast Date
1994-10
Cast
Arthur Miller, Maude Davis, Joe Frank
Format
Improv Actors, Scripted Actors, 27 minutes
Preceded by:	Either / Or (Part 1)
Followed by:	Anthology Of Love (Part 1)
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This is Joe Frank, I'm here at the Bellflower Hotel.

Either / Or (Part 2) is a program Joe Frank produced as part of the series In The Dark. It was originally broadcast in 1994.

Synopsis

Joe interviews famous mime Bertram Fields (Arthur Miller) in a hotel room at the Bellflower.

Joe asks him what he would have done had he not become a mime. Fields says that he would have been a registered nurse, describes in detail how he would have practiced nursing. We hear the passionate couple next door and someone pounding on their door, yelling.

2:40: Joe asks for a taste of his upcoming performance. Fields performs 'Nothing happened', a favorite from the Decroux days.

3:40: Fields recalls a wonderful day in early autumn, lying in Elizabeth's lap after a picnic. He sleeps and dreams. His happiness is spoiled by the thought of her brother, Heinrich, an artist with a mangled hand who comes between them.

12:00: Fields remembers the night of that day. He wakes, and sees Heinrich in her face. He calls a carriage that takes him to Heinrich's sanitarium. When he arrives, Heinrich's not there, no one knows him.

14:20: This reminds Fields of the day at the academy that Professor Strawn (sp?) made him dress as a woman and whipped him as he danced. This made him feel free and stimulated him to be the best student. He met Heinrich there; Heinrich failed out.

17:40: Joe tells us why he's always hated mime, cites its clichés. He mentions the 'mime defense' against conviction, cites the case of a fellow who murdered his family after watching 2 performances in a row.

20:00: The phone rings. Fields answers it. We hear his half of a discussion of - a performance?

21:30: Joe tells us he wants what we've just heard to stay with us: under our skin, in our veins and kidneys. He wants us to write a paper about it, submit a detailed medical history, a cashier's check…

23:10: Joe's disconcerted by the passionate couple next door again, asks Fields to call the desk.

24:50: Joe talks about the lovers next door.

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Legacy Synopsis

Becoming a nurse instead of a mime. radio performance of the piece Nothing Happened: an idyllic picnic with a strange woman, obsessions with her brother, an artist who read the Magna Carta during dinner and suffered a breakdown, her brother disappears, finding meaning while being forced to dress as a woman and dance in class. Monologue: I've always hated mime, the mime defense based on murder after a mime performance. One side of a bizarre telephone conversation. Monologue: I want what you just heard to dwell within you, an academic paper on it.

Music

This is an incomplete record of the music in this program. If you can add more information, please do.

• "Into Dust" - Mazzy Star (from So Tonight That I Might See, 1993) | YouTube [11:52]

Additional credits

The original broadcast credits state: "[P]erformed by Arthur Miller, Joe Frank, and Maude Davis. The story editor was Farley Ziegler. Recorded and mixed by Jerry Summers. Special thanks to Jennifer Ferro and Theo Mondle."