I wrote the first episode of Markheim on a lark. It was several years ago, late in December, that time in corporate America when honestly nothing gets done, but you’re still expected to haunt your cubicle, like the living ghost of Bob Cratchit. I wanted to write a Christmas script, but something also hip and nasty, like we put on at AHA! Theatre for the variety show JunkXmas, way back in the mid-1990’s. It was really only a sketch of a play, tossed off and forgotten. The idea being to mash-up the nearly unnavigable moralities of LeCarre’s brilliant thrillers with the blunt choppy dialogue of Hammett’s incomparable detective stories, with maybe a little Miltonian angelology thrown in for texture. Even when I didn’t know exactly who was talking, the dialogue seemed to flow of its own volition.
BEZ: How long you think they’ll let you just wonder around over here unchaperoned?
MARKHEIM: Why should they care? They always get what they want.
BEZ: Maybe. But they ain’t crazy about... the unexpected.
MARKHEIM: They gonna kill the golden goose?
BEZ: They done stupider.
MARKHEIM: True that.
BEZ: Killed goldener.
MARKHEIM: Yeah. Yeah, they have.
Early the next year, when Leslie Law asked me if I had any ideas for a radio show she was thinking of mounting, the Markheim script leapt to mind. Next I’m supposed to say, “And the rest was history.” Well, maybe someday it will be, but right now there are still three more in installments of Markheim looming in the future, and the next one, part of Sandbox Radio’s upcoming Swing Time episode, promises to be a nasty blast!
My eyes flick open. I’m awake. This is real. The Show. As real as it gets, for whatever that’s worth. But at least I’m not dreaming. I’m sure of it.
And here’s the bitch about that. It means I know it’s real somehow when this lanky giant, as tall as Hammering, Man crawls out of Eliot Bay, dripping sound water and seaweed. He ducks his bobbling head under the viaduct and stalks on toward the Harbor Steps. From above me demons shriek, unleashing unholy hell fire at him, but it barely slows him down. He’s coming right for me, and as he stalks up the steps over me, he looks down into me with fish blind eyes, and growls, “Cousin.”
When: Monday, June 16 at 8 pm
Where: ACT’s Falls Theatre
How: Get your tickets now by clicking here. You can score a special Sandbox Radio Head’s discount by using the passcode: "sradiohead"
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