MONMOUTH, Ill. —Did Monmouth College go to the Wells once too often?

The college’s Crimson Masque theater group kicks off the 2009 spring theater season Feb. 26 with “A Night at the Mercury Theater: War of the Worlds.” The show features, among others, the 1938 radio drama by Orson Welles (an adaptation of H. G. Wells’ 1898 classic science fiction novel) that literally convinced his unsuspecting radio audience that the United States was under attack by Martians. Performances in the college’s appropriately-named Wells Theater are Feb. 26 through 28 at 7:30 p.m., with a matinee performance on March 1 at 2 p.m.

Tickets are $4 for MC students, faculty and staff; $5 for other students and senior citizens and $6 for adults. They may be reserved by phone at 309-457-2374 or by e-mail at theater@monm.edu.

The production on March 1 will be preceded at 1 p.m. by a one-hour discussion. Communication lecturer Chris Goble will discuss the golden age of radio drama, and Joe Angotti, visiting distinguished professor of communication, will address the role and responsibility of the media in times of national crises. Angotti is a former executive producer of NBC News.

Prior to the recreation of the “War of the Worlds” broadcast, the Crimson Masque performers will bring to life two other legendary radio broadcasts from the same era, starting with a short episode from Buck Rogers, followed by a 30-minute piece entitled “Zero Hour,” written by Ray Bradbury.

Although the performances are recreations of radio broadcasts from what has become known as the Golden Age of Radio, director Janeve West, professor of communication and theatre arts, says the productions “will also be intense for both the eyes and the ears.” The productions will recreate 1930s and 1940s radio Foley (a technical process by which sounds are created or altered for use in a film, video or other electronically produced work) and are staged with authentic microphones.

West says her approach to tackling these classic radio dramas on stage has been to explore “the tensions and anxieties of the U.S. in the 1930s and 1940s revealed through headlines and news reports (and in a nation’s desire to hide behind Space Age superheroes). These tensions, I and others contend, resulted in the actual panic during the airing of ‘War of the Worlds.’ I contend that Wells purposefully and knowingly antagonized an already tense population for the sake of art.”

The original broadcast, aired the day before Halloween in 1938, was directed by and featured Orson Welles as he adapted the science fiction novel “The War of the Worlds” about a Martian invasion of Earth. Welles, however, made one important change: his play was written and performed so it would sound like a news broadcast, a technique that was intended to heighten the dramatic effect.

West says the unique trio of on-stage radio broadcasts seeks to revisit the national anxieties underlying the U.S. when they were originally aired.

“Just after the stock market crash, and looking toward World War II, those national, political, economic and social anxieties urged our nation to turn toward heroes like Buck Rogers,” she said. “They also caused us to rethink our own personal safety, and that of the children reflected in Bradbury’s ‘Zero Hour.’ Finally, our fear of invasion and anxiety over the unknown is seen not only in ‘The War of the Worlds,’ but in the very real panic that occurred during the airing of this production.

“Meanwhile,” she continued, “I have stretched a bit of my own artistic license as a director by authoring, compiling and choreographing moments within the production that reflect this tension and anxiety.”

A number of faculty and staff on campus have contributed to the recreation of authentic equipment from the era. An electronic device called a theremin has been built and will be used to produce an eerie sound. A Van de Graaff generator, which is an electrostatic machine that uses a moving belt to accumulate very high electrostatically stable voltages on a hollow metal glove, will also create unique sound effects.