View from the top

VIEW FROM THE TOP

RADIO

'Penthouse' 1989 September

BY KATE LYNCH

Public radio's black sheep, Joe Frank, creator and narrator of the popular radio drama "Work in Progress," is into his third season, thanks to sizable grants from the Corporation for Public Broadcasting and the National Endowment for the Arts Despite the program's steady growth in popularity (featured on over 30 stations nationwide). "Work in Progress" cannot be heard in the nation's capital on either of its two National Public Radio stations. And he has been exiled to a middle-of-the-night slot on WNYC - New York City's NPR flagship station. Does the native New Yorker find this strange? "Not really," Frank to;d Penthouse, "but I am disturbed that program directors make decisions for their listeners." New Yorkers can hear Frank at a reasonable hour on New Jersey's WFMU. (See Penthouse "Games." March 1989 )

"Work in Progress" - occasionally dismissed as malicious, vile, ridiculous garbage - is more often lauded as thought-provoking entertainment "His best work transcends the genre of radio and becomes great art," offers WXPN (Philadelphia) Music Director Mike Morrison. WBEZ (Chicago) Program Director Ken Davis says the majority view Frank's work as "creative mind theater."

Although Davis believes Frank is "an acquired taste.' he adds that many listeners "live and breathe it. Its almost impossible to leave the show once you get sucked in."

The stories are legion of spellbound listeners driving in circles around their homes until a program's conclusion. Positive reaction is often immediate - "Your radio show impressed me dramatically and indelibly the first time I heard it." one fan told Frank. Or more gradual - "At first I hated it. then I was confused, and finally it dawned on me that it was genius." Ohio resident Rob Shober said of his Joe Frank experience.

Frank himself has faced angry listeners, as in the case of a Pennsylvania woman who called KCRW, the Santa Monica station that produces the show, after becoming incensed by "Rent a Family" - a three-part series that won the CPB Public Radio Program Award and Columbia University's Major Armstrong Award in 1988. After Frank explained to her that the theme of the show deals with loneliness in this country and the inability to commit, she calmed down and they "agreed to disagree."

In any case. Frank's work never fails to move listeners when it lurches from lullabies to disasters or tragedies. In "Nausea," for example, the narrator muses dreamily over a soundtrack of gently falling rain, saying. "Rain puts the world in a trance." Then, abruptly shifting gears, he states that he has never felt lonelier in his life, and resolves to leave his wife before the rain stops, telling her, "I realized you're a stranger to me"

Another of Frank's characters ridicules the trimmings and trappings of Christmas in "A Road to Hell." He describes the Christmas tree he leaves up till mid-August "The other decorations on my tree are fire extinguishers, smashed bifocals, blocks of steaming dry ice, a cameo of Eva Braun. a dental chart of Anthony Eden…" Shock and titillation are not Frank's purpose, but as he soberly explains, "To face a painful truth is ennobling or enriching, and suffering can lead to wisdom."

The former teacher also strives to "astonish listeners, open up new vistas, and expand the imagination." Frank, the student who ranked 493 in a high school graduating class of 505, says that had he foreseen his current success - which this year included sold-out one-man performances at Los Angeles's Museum of Contemporary Art and a book deal with William Morrow - "I would have fallen on my knees with tears in my eyes"

Accolades and awards aside. Frank says of his listener mail, "Without the letters. I'd be in limbo." Students, senior citizens, and prisoners are among his diverse "cult" audience. People have written him that they listen to "Work in Progress" with family and friends as in the radio days of old. A Japanese exchange student wrote Frank after returning home, "Life without Joe is boring and almost empty."