“The Man Who Loved Flowers – A radio play” by Jordan Willis. A.K.A ” A Stephen King Radio Play”

One of my worst fears is to become blind. Of course, no one wants to lose any of the 5 senses, but I find myself thinking about that a lot. And that is because one of the things I love the most is to read. Yeah, you might say that there are audiobooks, but here in Brazil audiobooks are not as common as it might be for you guys abroad. It is getting better, but audiobooks in Portuguese are not a big industry here yet.

During the pandemic, a new world opened for me: the ficcional audio series in podcast, in English. First of all, let me confess that I used to have a lot of prejudice about podcasts, the talking kind. Because I used to feel like it was a cool conversation but one that I was not able to be part of. But once I started hearing ficcional series I gave a second chance to the talking kind and I lost this prejudice, actually I became a real fan of some of them.

The ficcional audio series entered my life because of another passion of mine: Marvel characters. There is an audio series about Wolverine that is awesome. I started with this one (Wolverine: The Long Night) and then became addicted to this kind of media. There are so many great audio series, but unfortunately not so many in portuguese.

This kind of media is basicamente radio plays, a thing that was very popular decades ago, before TV became a popular (cheap) device. Here in Brazil he used to have a lot of radio plays and also soap operas. The radio soap operas were very popular here, a lot of our TV legends here started acting in those shows in the 50s, 60s before they went to TV shows. I am glad that radio plays are becoming a thing again, because I got to say that I became addicted to radio plays and audio series.

There are some great audio series: for those who like superheroes and comic books you can find in Spotify this one with Wolverine, it has 2 seasons. There is also a great one from DC comics about Batman, two seasons. One of the best I have ever heard is “Sandman” adapted by audible. It is amazing because it is truly faithful to the comic book series, with a great and amazing cast of famous actors and also it has Neil Gaiman himself as a narrator. (yeah, I am aware about the accusations he is facing, but that does not change the fact that the guys wrote a lot of great things ” Never Meet Your Heroes”, right?).

For us Stephen King fans, there are 3 great things to hear, two of them at Spotify: there is an audio series based upon “Strawberry Spring”, a really cool one. And for the second tip, let me tell you that there is another kind of podcast that I discovered, the 3d immersive reading: this is basically someone reading a book and using sound effects to get you practically inside the story. And there is an amazing story reader that I found out also during the pandemic: Levar Burton. For those of you who are not familiar with the name, he is an actor who played a role in Star Trek Next Generation. You know, the black guy with funny glasses? It is him. His reading podcast is called “Levar Burton Reads” and I do recommend you to check it out, there are 13 seasons of it, where he read ficcional short storys, one per episode. And found out so many great authors in there, some episodes made me buy a book from the author of the week. In this podcast he not only reads to us great short tales with that amazing voice and incredible talent as an actor, but also he shares with the audience his thoughts about the story and the author. It is so cool. In one episode Levar read one of King’s short  stories, the “Afterlife”. And let me tell you, I think not even King himself reading this short tale would be so good. I strongly advise you to check out these two things on Spotify: “Strawberry Spring” and “Levar Burton reads- Afterlife, by Stephen King”. One day I will write a review about these audio podcasts.

Aaaaaand finally, the third audio story I recommend to you guys, the reason for this review: ” The Man Who Loved Flowers – A Radio Play”, by Jordan Willis. You can check it out at this link.

Before I start, let me tell you that I wish that we from SKSM had more information about this radio play, because I would love to hear other radio plays made by this cast and crew. And also, I would love to say their names when I start to thank them for their amazing work. Yes, they did an amazing job by adapting “The Man Who Loved Flowes” into this radio play. But, since I don’t know which artist did what in this radio play, I will direct all my compliments to Jordan Willis.

That being said, let me start talking about the radio play.

First of all, the text was very well adapted. Whoever did it, “she” did a great job. The adapted text found a balance between being too faithful to the original source and also giving a good rhythm to the story. Before we think about the cast and director’s work that also gave that rhythm, I consider that the way the text was written gave this good rhythm to the play. It was faithful (sometimes too faithful) in a way that it was almost word by word of King’s original words, especially the dialogues. But this is not a criticism, because let’s face it: this is something that almost every single Dollar Baby artist did while adapting the short stories into Dollar Babies.

And if you think about it, by doing a radio play you can’t rely on visual things to amaze the audience. You need to create a visual image to the audience with other tools, and words are your strongest weapons to do that. And who better to use King’s word than King himself? Of course, there are some changes and some cuts compared with the original story, but in a general way, it was pretty faithful. But be sure that the radio play really shines at this adaptation in two aspects: sound design and acting.

This kind of media has a similar effect to books as to make someone travel far away without leaving the room. And the really good ones sometimes are even better than reading a book, because a good sound design in radio plays and audio series takes the audience to an unique place inside their head in different ways books do.

The sound design is the best thing about this radio play, because in radio plays or audio series the sound design is the most powerful weapon to create an immersive experience. A great sound design combined with a great text hooks the audience all the time. And that is exactly what Jordan Willis does at this radio play: “The Man Who Loved Flowers” hooks us, it does. It takes us to New York during a spring day in 1963. It made me believe that the main character was crossing NY streets 62 years ago, when there were not so many cars riding on the streets. Where young children could play around on the streets. A city where we still had people selling flowers at 1 dollar (The same amount that we all paid to Mr King so we could make Dollar Babies). In this radio play, when I close my eyes I can see the flowers, the flower seller’s hand giving the kid the flower wrapping.

While listening to this radio play I can see scenes like that inside my head in an even better way that I see while reading the original short story. That happens because the sounds Willis uses to tell this story give the audience more tools to create a visual imagem than King gives us in his short story. Words are powerful, of course, but that is the great thing about the audio media: the really good ones, like “The Man Who Love Flowers”, goes beyond the words, but in a different way than movies do. We still are the directors of the story in our heads, but since one different sense of the five senses are used in audio midias, some other senses might become stimulated too. While listening to the radio play I could smell those flowers, I could feel the heat of that Spring afternoon, I could see kids playing … that is how good Jordan Willis’ radio play is. So, thank you, Jordan. Thank you so much for this unique experience.

And, for closure, the narrator and the voice actors are something we all should aplaude for their work at this Dollar Baby.

First, the narrator : that female voice was such a great choice. A pleasant voice and the fact that it is a female voice really made the difference, because this story is about a woman killer and having a female narrator in it made me think that maybe the narrator was one of his victims, a ghost one or maybe some woman that in the future will survive the killer’s attack and she is talking the guy. Once again, Jordan Willis, thank you.

And the voice actors too, they were also a great choice. Talented actors that combined with a great narrator really gave the audience an unique experience, making this experience not look like a book read out loud by several people, but a really great radio play!

I wish not only we could all have the chance to hear other plays like that, but that there were many other Dollar Baby audio plays. There is another one, based upon “One for the Road”, but this is a subject for another day.

The Dollar Baby’s grade? We from SKSM give 4 fingers from the dead guy’s hand. We would give it more, but the fifth finger the dead guy is using to poke his own ear so he can hear the audio play better.

That is it for today, hope you guys liked this review. And, of course, hear and like the audio play. Give us feedback later, I bet Jordan Willis will love to hear it.

Thank you guys, see you next time.

Leonardo Granado