Chronicling Mars

Of all Ray Bradbury's stage plays, by far the most difficult to stage must be The Martian Chronicles. Bradbury wrote the play himself, from his own "novel" - but of course the "novel" is really a collection of short stories, woven together into a loose chronology.

The play, somehow, has to take the fragmentary narrative of the book and turn it into something with a unity of time, place and event. And all this without a central protagonist!

Nevertheless, the sheer variety of moods, tone and characters in The Martian Chronicles gives it a great deal of appeal, and this is no doubt why it is a popular choice for high school theatre groups to perform. Which brings me to this sympathetic review of a recent high school production in Farmington, New Mexico. The production is over now, so there's no point in my saying "break a leg"; but I hope it went well.