Lines

Lines[1]

Series
Work In Progress
Original Broadcast Date
1988
Cast
Joe Frank
Format
Absurd Monologue, 1 hour
Preceded by:	Islands
Followed by:	The Policemen's Ball

"What's your name? Nina. Where are you calling from?"

"Lines" is the name of a program Joe Frank produced as part of the series Work In Progress. It was originally broadcast in 1988.

Synopsis

Joe talks to a woman on a telephone chat line and asks an endless series of questions- being a clown in New York, first sexual experience. A woman and man fight about a woman caller who won't talk when she picks up the phone. Some people chat on a chat line. Panel discussions: a long distance couple whose passion is heightened by the distance between them; prison visitation experience heightened by further separating the parties; a man who covers his body with portable telephony equipment; the phone as the ultimate form of birth control. Joe talks to another woman on the chat line - he's suspicious of her, tries to fight with her, "when do you like to be touched?" Deep, distorted voice: a phone conversation as a chess game, computerizing a telemarketing call, people as unconscious voice stress analyzers, lonely people and answering machines, silence as an argument parry, excusing a missed psychiatrist appointment with recorded airport terminal sounds, bar room phones that supply artificial background sounds, the urgency of a ringing telephone, appearing suave on the phone no matter what you look like. Joe talks to the woman on the phone: people who believe they are in touch are deluded, conversation as a board game, being a certain way, bathing. A distorted voice talks about picking up a telephone in a booth and having a suggestive conversation with a strange woman. Joe and a woman engage in a telephone encounter. Panel discussion: telephone modulation as an allegory for human communication.

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