Center Stage's Production of 'War of the Worlds' Puts the Concept of Fake News in Context

On Halloween eve, 1938, actor and writer Orson Welles and producer John Houseman of The Mercury Theatre on the Air were joined by a cast of actors in a CBS radio broadcast studio in New York City where they presented Howard Koch’s dramatized script of “The War of the Worlds,” the 19th century novel by H.G. Wells about alien invasion.

Presented as a series of newscasts that break into regularly scheduled programming, the production purportedly offered real time eye-witness accounts of a Martian invasion that began in New Jersey, but soon spread across the region.

There were disclaimers offered at various breaks in the broadcast saying the production was fictional, but that wasn’t enough to assuage panic. By the end of the evening, many listeners believed Martians really had invaded and that it was only a matter of time before they showed up in cities and towns across the country.

Fortunately, that was a long time ago, and people aren’t nearly as susceptible to fake news now as they were then. Right?

Though we’d like to think the gullibility factor that led Americans to believe in things like Martian invasion is a thing of the past, there are unfortunate parallels to be found with the 1938 broadcast and today’s propensity toward “fake news” and alternative facts. That’s to say nothing of deep fakes and the AI revolution, which, like the fictional Martians of New Jersey, are on the doorstep and ready to further muddy the waters of truth.

With that in mind, after taking a hiatus from the South Fork theater scene, director Michael Disher is back on the East End and reviving his Center Stage company, this time with a brand new show and a brand new collaboration with Southampton Arts Center on Jobs Lane.

Just in time for Halloween, “War of the Worlds: The Panic Broadcast,” written by Connecticut-based playwright Joe Landry, with considerable input from Disher, will be presented at SAC for one weekend only, on Saturday and Sunday, October 21 and 22. The new play reprises portions of the 1938 Halloween radio broadcast, but furthers the discussion by presenting it in a new light given what’s happening in the world these days.

“Michael was really interested in doing this piece,” explained Landry, who has created a few different scripts using the 1938 radio broadcast as a jumping off point, including one titled “Fake News” designed specifically for high school and college audiences. “I’ve always been interested in ‘War of the Worlds’ and Orson Welles and the effect it had on listeners that night, and where we’ve been since then.

“It’s planting a seed about believing things that aren’t true and the media’s responsibility in that,” he added. “Is it a cautionary tale? Maybe.”

Landry’s “War of the Worlds: The Panic Broadcast” is set in 1948, a decade after the original broadcast, and the action takes place at WBFR, a fictional radio station where the actors perform mysteries and plays live over the air.

“Because it’s the 10th anniversary, they are going to perform the broadcast of ‘War of the Worlds,’ and it goes back and forth between the WBFR players to the actual presentation and to Orson Welles and John Houseman and how they got caught up in this mess of a production,” Disher explained. “Orson thought it would just be an adaptation of the novel, but set in America. Houseman quickly realized that people who didn’t hear the beginning of the broadcast believed it was happening and it scared them to death.

“Once we get through with that section, we go back to 1948 and deal with all the repercussions after the broadcast and the consequences,” Disher continued “From there, it evolves into commentary on the power of media — both good and bad — and the gullibility of people. That’s the portion that appealed to me greatly.”

One of the challenges in writing this play was offering enough of the original broadcast to set the stage as a jumping off point to further the examination of fact vs. fiction. In their collaboration, Landry, who was able to secure the rights to the 1938 script from the estate of Howard Koch, encouraged Disher to dive in and determine what could be cut from the original broadcast while still offering enough to explain the new content they were looking to insert into the piece.

“When working with Michael, I said, ‘I know this is verbose, and I know everything that ever happened in ‘War of the Worlds’ is squeezed into one play. Please take out what you want, simplify it if you want,” Landry said. “I think he’s done some really great trims and edits. He was able to get it down to 90 minutes.”

“You still get the whole radio show from ’38,” Disher added. “Orson was so lofty — the actors will be reading — but they have to be delivering whatever droll language is in there. I think it all plays pretty well. Joe is the king of writing these random commercials into his radio shows. It brings levity and divides the sections more neatly. It’s powerful and it’s a challenge.”

Though Center Stage had been a company-in-residence at Southampton Cultural Center for several years, a battle with cancer and a brain tumor took Disher out of the mix (and the area) for a time. But after an Express Sessions event earlier this year about the future of the arts in Southampton, Disher was encouraged to take his idea of reviving Center Stage to Southampton Arts Center, particularly given that Christina Strassfield had just come on board as SAC’s new executive director in January.

“Christina and I met in March. The timing was really good, and we had such a pleasant conversation,” Disher recalled. “She said, ‘I’d love to see things done here. I hope you’re not upset, but I don’t want summer events.’

“I said, ‘Who does? What I’m best at is community theater by the community for the community in the off season,’” Disher added. “She said, ‘That’s perfect.’”

With this new collaboration at the Southampton Arts Center, Disher’s vision for Center Stage is to be a bit more flexible and nimble going forward in terms of its productions. That means fewer rehearsals and shows that are offered over the course of a single weekend, rather than for a two- or three-weekend run, which can be a difficult proposition for community theaters that rely on actors who also have day jobs.

“I am so impressed with how welcoming, how gracious, how loving and lovely the facility is, and I hope we can live up to the art and history of that beautiful building,” Disher said of SAC. “Christina Strassfield, has been nothing but gracious, generous, caring — and I hate using the word — but thrilled. She wants us there and wants the facility to be active.”

The quicker and less intensive productions that Center Stage will present at SAC going forward are also an important consideration for Disher, who, after a 2018 cancer diagnosis, underwent surgery and still faces some mobility issues as a result.

“Even through my recovery and all that nonsense, and even in rehab, I always maintained I’ve got a few more stories to tell,” Disher said. “I still believe that. I don’t think I’m done yet.

“Coming out of the pandemic, and my personal pandemic, it kind of proved to me that I still got it. I knew I did,” he added. “They can take away an arm and a leg temporarily, but they can’t take away the brain.”

While Center Stage will be presenting a total of four productions between now and next spring at SAC, with “War of the Worlds The Panic Broadcast,” the new collaboration is getting started with a Halloween show that sticks to the theme of horror, but perhaps not exactly in the same way that most offerings would.

“It was a piece of history that scared the shit out of people,” Disher said of the 1938 radio broadcast. “It’s not just goblins and ghouls. We live in fearful times. And this isn’t the first fearful time.

“What Joe does at the end of the play is offer a review of the decades — the ’30s with the Hindenburg, the ’40s Pearl Harbor, ’50s with McCarthyism and the House Un-American Activities Committee, ’60s, the Cuban missile crisis, all the way up to 9/11 and the execution of [journalist] James Foley. This is what we live in and with. Media can work effectively to encourage and promote and educate or it can go the other extreme where truth becomes lie and fact is deniable.

“Who is the greatest offender?” he asked. “Is it print journalism? Broadcast journalism? Social media? Or is everyone equally culpable. I don’t have answers, but it sure makes you think.”

Center Stage’s production of Joe Landry’s “War of the Worlds: The Panic Broadcast” will be performed Saturday and Sunday, October 21 and 22, at Southampton Arts Center. Performances are Saturday at 2 p.m. and 7 p.m. and Sunday at 2 p.m. The show features Richard Adler, Daniel Becker, Richard Browning, Susan Cincotta, Joey Giovingo, Vincenzo Harty, Jenifer Maxson, Matthew O’Connor, Franco Pistritt and Michaal Lyn Schepps. Center Stage will also present a Christmas show December 8 through 10 (another collaboration by Landry and Disher), followed on January 27 and 28 by the Tennessee Williams play “The Glass Menagerie,” which will be directed by Joan Lyons, and a fourth yet to be named production that will also be directed by Lyons and offered on April 13 and 14.

Tickets are $20 (SAC members $15) at southamptonartscenter.org or 631-283-0967. Tickets are also available at the door, though reservations are recommended. Southampton Arts Center is at 25 Jobs Lane, Southampton.