I can\'t pretend to be objective about \"The Oblong Box\"--or, in fact, any of the episodes from the RMT Edgar Allan Poe Week. Poe was my first favorite writer, and I heard these shows not too long after I first read his collected stories (when I was 12 or 13). In general, I dislike Poe adaptations; usually they\'re quite cheesy, and show little understanding of what makes Poe so effective as a storyteller (the 1960s Vincent Price Poe movies are classic examples, though I suppose I enjoy them in a way--their sheer corniness). But the RMT Poe Week is a shining exception. I loved them when I heard them in 1975, and I love them today. Some of the shows (including my favorite, \"The Tell-Tale Heart\") are really brilliantly creative, expanding and reimagining tales that only run a few pages into full-bodied, 45-minute radio plays that are still, somehow, Poe-esque.

An added delight for me in the case of \"The Oblong Box\" is the wonderful sound quality. About 15 years ago I bought a bunch of (bootlegged, no doubt) audio cassettes of RMT, including the Poe episodes; I still have them, and their sound quality, though audible, is as bad now as it was then. What a pleasure to hear this show in clear sound for the first time since I was a kid--I can actually hear all the dialogue in the big storm scene in Act 3!

I suppose, objectively speaking, that this is really one of the lesser Poe RMT adaptations. The story is fairly obvious, and, as with so many RMTs, would probably have worked better in two acts. And yet the climax is memorably disgusting, and the exchange between the husband and wife as they watch seems to me to strike straight to what makes Poe\'s work so memorable:

Wife: How gruesome!
Husband: But beautiful...in a way.

So many of Poe\'s stories (cf \"The Fall of the House of Usher,\" \"Ligeia\") could be described just this way. Gruesome...yet beautiful.

I\'m sorry for rambling, but I\'ll say one more thing. It never occurred to me until I re-listened to \"The Oblong Box\" this afternoon that these RMT adaptations may have somehow played a role in my own professional development. They certainly proved to me that Poe *can* be adapted successfully, even brilliantly. And so maybe they were somehow in the back of my mind, unconsciously, when I put together POE\'S LIGHTHOUSE, a collection of original stories I\'ve edited which is due out in the next couple of months.

No doubt my mentioning this would be more appropriate in the Off the Air section, and I\'ll post something there when the book is officially released.

As you\'ll see, it\'s an anthology of stories which adapt an unfinished fragment of an Edgar Allan Poe tale in two dozen different ways.

A thousand pardons for the naked self-promotion here--I hope I haven\'t offended anybody. I\'ll shut up now. But I\'m forever grateful for Poe, and for these Poe RMTs. They\'re not just good episodes, they\'re the best possible episodes! <br>