Younger listeners may have to be filled in on the politics of the day, especially in terms of the communist threat.Īnd though Montanari voicing the accent of a bad-guy Chinese general may be disconcerting given the anti-Asian sentiment rearing its ugly head these days, it works in context. Pollifax is an older character, her appeal is timeless as voiced by McLachlan. From left: Jonah Goger, Eduardo Mora and Nick Bosy perform in Long Beach Shakespeare Company’s radio play, “The Unexpected Mrs. Ali Ryan performs live sound-effects on cue, adding greatly to the story’s vividness, as does site-specific music directed by Edmund Velasco. Rounding out the cast are Jonah Goger narrating the tale and Brenda DeRe as a CIA secretary.

Nick Bosy plays Albanian sympathizer Lulash exuberantly and Eduardo Mora switches hats well between the sinister Cuban General Perdido and a gruff CIA director. Smooth-voiced Joe Montanari is fellow spy Johnny Farrell, captured along with Mrs. Jo McLachlan (right) directs Joe Montanari (left) and Brenda DeRe (center) in Long Beach Shakespeare Company’s radio play, “The Unexpected Mrs. Pollifax, McLachlan also directs the other performers in the KBRD radio station inside LBSC’s Helen Borgers Theatre. McLachlan voices the title character naturally and believably, and don’t miss her as a teenage girl in a clever half-time ad for the Long Beach Historical Society. See related story: Long Beach Shakespeare Company explores the dark side of heroism in radio-play double-header Many of the performers in LBSC’s other radio-play offering this month-a double feature of “Gunsmoke: The Shakespeare Episode” and “An Inch and a Half of Glory”-lend their formidable talents to this production as well. Pollifax negotiating a secret rendezvous, getting kidnapped by Cuban and Chinese communists (this is during the Cold War), imprisoned in Albanian mountains and trying to escape mostly by her own homey know-how. So begins a delightfully wild ride that will see the apparently indomitable Mrs. Pollifax is immediately dispatched to Mexico to retrieve a secret package. Mistaken for another nondescript woman, Mrs. She decides to offer her services to the CIA, especially since she otherwise has little else to do. Pollifax is a widow from New Jersey whose cousin had taught her to shoot a gun in her youth. Pollifax, adapted into a radio play by Jo McLachlan for the Long Beach Shakespeare Company. Some book-cover designs for Dorothy Gilman’s original 1966 novel, The Unexpected Mrs. Pollifax,” adapted by Jo McLachlan from Dorothy Gilman’s 1966 novel, takes us imaginatively around the globe through a tale of Cold War espionage, harrowing intrigue and plain good manners. In its second “radio-play” production this month, the Long Beach Shakespeare Company (LBSC) brings us an unlikely spy heroine who would put even 007 to shame.

The unexpected mrs pollifax