Hiro & Liling / The Martian Death March

Hiro / Death March

19 July 2021

Program Guide for Hiro & Liling and The Martian Death March

Lyrical Love Story. Insight into Inhumanity.

Re-Imagined Radio presented The Willamette Radio Workshop performing two short radio dramas, "Hiro & Liling" by Kristina Jones, an original performance, and "The Martian Death March" by Ernest Kinoy, an episode from Dimension X and X Minus One. Both are directed by Sam A. Mowry.

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Hiro & Liling

Inspired by Japanese folklore, possibly the story of Meoto Iaw, the wedded rocks, "Hiro & Liling," an original love story by Kristina Jones, Portland, Oregon, unfolds as an old man teaches his grandchild the legend of an ancient rock formation said to represent a war-hardened Japanese General and a young Chinese girl orphaned by his troops. In simple, lyrical language the grandfather traces the relationship between the two. At once poignant and hopeful, potent and reflective, the piece represents some of the best work to come out of Willamette Radio Workshop’s 2004 Writers-on-the-Air Workshop directed by Cynthia McGean.

Cast
Chris Porter
Laura Faye Smith
Janet Penner
Genevieve Winters
David Loftus
Atticus Welles Mowry
Sam A. Mowry

Credits
Written by Kristina Jones
Original Music by Peter Armetta
Recorded by Robert Kowal
Post Production by Martin John Gallagher
Produced and Directed by Sam A. Mowry
The Writers-on-the-Air Workshop directed by Cynthia McGean
Post Production by Sam A. Mowry and Marc Rose
Promotional Graphics by Holly Slocum Design
Social Media by Regina Carol Social Media and Photography
Produced and Hosted by John F. Barber

The Martian Death March

"The Martian Death March" is an original radio drama from a true master of the genre, Ernest Kinoy (1925-2014). Born and raised in New York City, Kinoy's attendence of Columbia University was interrupted by military service during World War II. Captured in Europe by German forces he served time in the slave labor camp at Berga in Thuringia, Germany. Following his release at the end of war, Kinoy graduated from Columbia and became a staff writer at NBC Television in 1948.

Kinoy remained at NBC until 1960 writing scripts for many of the network's television series including Studio One and Playhouse 90. After leaving NBC Kinoy continued writing episodes for popular television series like Doctor Kildare, The Defenders, Route 66, Naked City, and Shane. He also wrote scripts for television movies. In 1976, his script for Victory at Entebbe was nominated for four Emmy awards, including one for Kinoy. His script, co-written with William Binn, for the second episode of Roots won an Emmy in 1977. The 1981 television movie Skokie won Kinoy a Writers Guild of America award in 1981. In 1986 he wrote the script for Murrow based on the life of Edward R. Murrow. In 1991, Kinoy adapted the screenplay for the television movie Chernobyl: The Final Warning from the book by Robert Peter Gale and Thomas Hauser.

Kinoy adapted numerous stories by young science fiction writers like Ray Bradbury, Isaac Asimov, and Philip K. Dick for both Dimension X (1950-1951) and X Minus One (1955-1958). The X Minus One: A Tribute episode of Re-Imagined Radio features Kinoy's adaptation of Ray Brabury's "The Veldt" from its original publication in The Saturday Evening Post.

Kinoy also contributed his own, original, scripts to Dimenision X and X Minus One. Notable is "The Martian Death March" which was first broadcast as episode #34 of Dimension X (14 January 1951), then reprised for episode #17 of X Minus One (8 September 1955), and repeated as episode #75, 14 November 1956. The cast included Ralph Bell, David Seffer, Dick Hamilton, Roger DeKoven, and Lawrence Kerr. LEARN more about X Minus One.

"The Martian Death March" is told by a narrator who, as a young colonist from Earth accompanied a group of spider-like Martians on a trek from an Earth-imposed reservation to their former homes in the mountains of Mars. The experience changed his life and his prejudices against the native Martians.

Science fiction writers are often able to move Earth-bound topics into space or to other planets where they can be examined and discussed with greater ease and insight because perhaps they seem fictional, more distant, less imposing. Kinoy achieved great success with this approach, offering with "The Martian Death March" a prism through which to view more clearly human inhumanity to other humans here on Earth. "The Martian Death March" becomes an allegory of systemic racism toward indigenous peoples seen as obstacles to national expansion. Perhaps by listening carefully, and critically to Kinoy's story, we can finally learn the lesson we seem to be forgetting, or ignoring.

Possibly, Kinoy was inspired to write "The Martian Death March" after reading about American Indians who escaped their reservation and marched toward a hoped for freedom in the Nineteenth Century. Possibly Kinoy read about a group of eight hundred Nez Perce Indians, who led by Chief Joseph, left their reservation in Oregon hoping to find freedom in Canada. Chief Joseph led his people more than one thousand miles across rough mountainous terrain evading U.S. troops only to be captured within forty miles of the Canadian border in 1877. As Chief Joseph surrendered he allegedly proclaimed, "Hear me, my chiefs! I am tired. My heart is sick and sad. From where the sun now stands, I will fight no more forever."

Cast
Christopher Hart as Announcer
Sam A. Mowry as Narrator
Karyn O’Bryant as Al
Patt Blem as Mom
Scott Jamieson as John
Todd Tolces as Martian
David Ian as Miner
David Ian as Captain
Christopher Hart as Sergeant

Credits
Sound Effects by Marc Rose
Engineer and Sound Effects by Martin John Gallagher
Foley by David Ian and Dino de AElfweald
Dramaturgy by Cynthia McGean
Produced and Directed by Sam A. Mowry
Post Production by Marc Rose, Fuse Audio Design
Social Media by Regina Carol Social Media and Photography
Promotional Graphics by Holly Slocum Design
Produced and Hosted by John F. Barber