Escape - The Open Boat

Escape's "The Open Boat" was adapted from a short story by Stephen Crane. The tale is a fictionalized account of Crane's own experience as the survivor of a shipwreck in 1897, while en route to Cuba. The full text of "The Open Boat" (1898) is available online from the Stephen Crane Society. Escape used modified passages from the original work to narrate this episode, and in doing so, preserved this story's message about the indifference of Nature towards mankind.

"When it occurs to a man that Nature does not regard him as important, and that she feels she would not maim the universe by disposing of him, he at first wishes to throw bricks at the temple, and he hates deeply the fact that there are no bricks and no temples..."

As the episode opens, four shipwrecked men are in a struggle to survive the rough ocean off the Florida coast in a small dinghy. Soon, the Mosquito Inlet Light is in sight and they assume that they will be rescued, but no one comes for them. To avoid crashing into the shore, they are forced to head back towards the open ocean. Later they drift close enough to shore to be seen by people on the beach, but no one helps them. Finally, they decide they can wait no longer, and they have to take the risk of heading the boat into the dangerous shoreline.

"The Open Boat" was adapted for radio by E. Jack Neuman. William Conrad was the narrator, TomTulley played the correspondent, Edgar Barrier played the captain, Bob Sweeny played the cook, and Dave Young played the Billy the oiler. This episode aired on July 19, 1953.

.  Download escape_07.19.1953_ TheOpenBoat.mp3

Escape also based an episode on Stephen Crane's story, "The Blue Hotel," but no recordings of that broadcast are known to exist at this time. "The Blue Hotel" aired on May 24, 1953. 

(Image of Mosquito Inlet Light (Now Ponce DeLeon Light) from Wikipedia.)

Comments

[Mike Hobart]

I'd love a nice can of spam about now...

[Cmillinsf]

Looks like I'm going to have to hold comments for moderation before they are posted. Sorry for any inconvenience that causes!
-Christine