The first of the two radio plays performed was that of the Coen brothers. A short, hilarious piece entitled, Sawbones. This one is a lot easier to summarise than Kaufman's offering but still, after just one listen, is a little difficult. Basically Sawbones is a "TV show" about a wild west veterinary, Varlan "Sawbones" Smith, played by Philip Seymour Hoffman and his encounters with the other members of the town including the woman of his dreams, Agnes Barley (Marcia Gay Harden) and the other point in the love triangle, the coward Frank MacReady (Steve Buscemi). There are other, smaller characters in the "TV show" who are variously played by the same three actors.

As the "TV show" plays out it is being "watched" fanatically and simultaneously by a husband and wife, Jerry and Joan Nelson (John Goodman and Brooke Smith) and an unnamed door-to-door salesman played by John Slattery. The two sets of actors were cannily split up on the stage with the Sawbones cast on the viewers left and the TV show fans on the right.

Sawbones was split up in to three episodes of the "TV show" each separated by Carter Burwell's exquisitely catchy and believable theme tune. I found the first third hard to follow as it wasn't until the second part that I realised the format of the play (the TV show and the viewers), however, this first episode of Sawbones concerned a gunshot being delivered into Frank MacReady's stomach by our hero veterinary, Sawbones. MacReady was then operated on, and his life saved by Sawbones. MacReady now had two excellent stomachs fashioned out of one bad one. There was a line in it about how, if he swallowed something into a full stomach, he could regurgitate it and send it on down to the other one! Marko Costanzo, the foley artist, deserves a special mention for this part of the act- for the sounds of the intestinal operation he utilised those long, thin balloons and when he was done with the sound effect creation what was left but some balloon sculpted animals- genius! While this first episode was on TV Joan was busily engaged in a session of extra-marital sex with the door-to-door salesman while Jerry was away at work, he was a fireman. Hilariously he telephoned home to discuss the episode of Sawbones with his wife only to get the answering machine where he left a protracted but sweet message which we can heard over the orgasmic sounds of his cheating wife and the TV show.

The second episode of Sawbones he declares his love for Agnes only to be told that she loves another- Frank!!! Obviously he's pretty gutted and sets off for the wilds alone. During this episode Jerry is back home having befallen an accident at work which has left him with a metal leg (truly, truly awesome foley work by Marko Costanzo as it scrapes and thuds along the ground), a smashed hand and, hilariously, burnt retinas. There's a knock at the door during the show and, in an effort to keep his independence, Jerry gets up to answer. Scrape, thump, scrape, thump all the way to the door only to be greeted by the door-to-door lothario. There is an effort to fight but blind and with a metal arm and leg, this is not easy.

In the third and final episode poor old Sawbones is found having been trampled and, to be honest, I can't really remember too much about this final episode of the "TV show" as it was overshadowed somewhat by the letters sent to and fro between Joan and the salesman. It appears that the salesman has taken Jerry's old job, after he was sacked form his salesman job following Jerry's barrage of letters to the firm.

I wish I could have a transcript or a recording of the play so that I could better relate plot points and gags but, alas, I am forced to rely on my ailing memory. Hopefully we can look forward to some kind of broadcast or CD release or something in the future.

If this brief outline has confused you I wouldn't even bother trying to understand "Hope Leaves the Theater"...

Where do you start with this one?!??!

Kaufman is, obviously, completely bonkers. The kind of bonkers that the old cliché supposes is close to genius. Having enjoyed immensely his movies (Being John Malkovich, Adaptation, Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind) I thought I would be well versed in what to expect. How wrong I was!

To summarise this radio play is going to be very difficult so bear with me please. The play "began" only it didn't (see- told you it was going to be hard!) with three people in an elevator, not just any elevator mind but one that is in a building with over 2000 floors. Meryl Streep playing some bitter, twisted, middle-ages spinster, in the lift with her are a seemingly lovely, lovey-dovey couple (Peter Dinklage and Hope Davis). She hates them! She hates herself. She hates her own sagging breasts. She hates EVERYTHING. Streep also did the voice of the floor announcer, which was hilarious, each floor contained not things such as ladie’s wear but more like misery and woe.

Turns out the three are merely people on the way to see the play in the same way I was, only not. They take their "seats" and it's only now that the house lights dim and the play starts proper. It's hard to pinpoint what the main crux of the play was supposed to be as, no sooner has it started, when Hope Davis' mobile phone rings. Only it's not the Hope Davis sat down on the stage it's the Hope Davies that is figuratively sitting in the audience with us. It's her mother calling. Streep throws the most hilarious diva tantrum you ever heard, shaming the audience Hope to leave the theatre (Hope Leaves the Theatre).

The story then follows Davis as she makes her way home through New York in the pouring rain (again hat's doffed to Costanzo's exceptional foley work). She is accosted by a bum, hit on amateurishly by a guy and muses on the qualities of Philip Seymour Hoffman's performance in the previous play (Sawbones) and that she could have been the third Coen brother. Finally she gets home and logs on to chat hilariously, and I mean HILARIOUSLY, with another Dinklage character over instant messenger. Costanzo's mimicry of computer use including, but not limited to, keyboarding sounds and beeps for outgoing/incoming messages. Her mother calls to say that she had called the mobile phone again to apologise for calling in the first place. She didn't receive the second call because... she'd left her phone in the theatre by accident which we, the real audience, hear and enjoy another Streep rant. During the rant it transpired that this was Kaufman's final written work before he tragically committed suicide (that Kaufman- he never stops does he!).

Davis rings her mobile to find out if she can arrange to get it back. A nice gentleman answers to say that he has it and hastily turned if off when it rang a second time. They arrange for it to be sent to her work after an aborted attempt to arrange a date. This brings us to the final twist in Hope Leaves the Theater. The guy who found the phone is writing a review of the play. He hates Kaufman and all his mind-bending gimmicks and, during the writing of the review, he states that Kaufman even wrote in a reviewer, which, of course, is himself!!!

The program too, is part of the show. It's full of bogus characters and scenes. For instance Streep's list of characters includes The Empress of Japan, Boy #2, Joan of Arc, and The Killer, while Dinklage's lists Tragic Monster, Sir Isaac Newton and Wolf. Some of the scenes listed include The Offices of Rolling Stone (1969); The Void, Thursday, 6:53am EST; Elevator, exactly 30 years later; the eye of the Hurricane, Easter Island, now and Elevator, one thousand years later. He's a wag is Kaufman :-)

As touched on above special credit needs to be given to Marko Costanzo whose live sound effect creation was entertainment enough in itself. From simple things like footsteps (often in ladies shoes which were WAY to small) to more complex things like rainfall, and the hum of cathode ray tubes, he made it all seem so effortless with his perfect timing and made it a kind of cabaret. Also, Carter Burwell and the band, Parabola, played, if I remember correctly, continuously the entire way through. Often very quiet background music but continuously non the less. Worthy of particular note was the "Sawbones" theme tune, the lift musak and the song at the climax of the Kaufman piece.

I would DEFINITELY recommend seeing/hearing this to anyone with a pulse, however I don't know how likely it is to be performed on another tour so we may have to make do with the forthcoming radio broadcasts.

The play was originally put on at St. Annes's Warehouse in Brookly, New York on 28th, 29th and 30th April 2005.

Sirius Satellite Radio, who co-funded this venture, are broadcasting the whole thing sometime in the Summer (in the US I think). If anyone reading this finds out any more information about this I would appreciate an email (paul_tweedle@scee.net). What would be even better is if someone recorded it... though, we all would, of course, prefer an official CD release.