stuart pearson

I've known and loved Stuart Pearson's music for quite a while now, and it has always suggested something more than the sum of its parts. Yes, it is easy to listen to the lyrics and follow the dark, terror-tinged, Gothic Americana tales that he weaves, but there has always been more to the music for those who know where to look.

 

When taken as a body of work, his songs suggest that they are the product of their unique world, which is our world but not quite our world. An alternative timeline, perhaps, or revealing some hidden truths and unseen mysteries about the real world that most people choose not to notice. Well, he has now turned that music to a broader purpose. Welcome to Purgatory, Missouri!

 

With a goal of using his music to enhance the medium of radio theatre and, in return, using that much-loved form to help promote new musical releases, Stuart Pearson and Hunter Lowry have created a marriage made in heaven—or should that be hell?

 

“Purgatory, Missouri” stars Dave Foley (Fargo, Kids in the Hall) and Mindy Sterling (Austin Powers and much more), Crissy Guerrero (American Mariachi, In The Heights) and Alina Foley (The Spy Next Door, Shimmer and Shine) with a large cast of actors wandering through this strange world.

 

Right from the off, we are greeted with the sort of introduction that made the likes of The “Twilight Zone” so iconic, setting the tone perfectly, a tone echoing the golden days of radio plays, its blend of high drama and gentle humor and crackling with the dark aura of Hammer movies and even an updated trace of H.P. Lovecraft's otherworldly creations.

 

The opening narratives are laid out in various telephone calls, which become more relevant as the story unravels. Then we find ourselves in the company of Theresa (Alina Foley) and Blanca (Crissy Guerrero) as they try to work out what is going on. As Blanca imparts her knowledge garnered over the vague passing of time she has spent in the mad carnival that swirls about them, we slowly realize that it is perhaps far removed from the real world. The people stumbling, zombie-like, around the carnival are sometimes familiar; maybe friends, but they make no sense as they slip in and out of their dark reveries. Is this hell on earth, is this earth at all?

 

The snippets of music add tension and tone, but the short but crucial asides, telephone conversations from a hospital a world away, add even more intrigue. Is this a dream? Are these the thoughts of patients in a coma? Is this the afterlife? Is this, as the show's name suggests, actually Purgatory—the waiting room between this life and the next, the place where you wait to see if the elevator takes you up or down?

 

The fun of the show is that, for now, at least, we know only as much as the main characters, and it is only as they propose and postulate what is going on that we learn about the setting they find themselves in. And, of course, that is the joy of the medium of radio; the dialogue suggests the scene, and our imagination colors it in.

 

So, we leave Theresa heading off into the carnival rides, chasing threads of her own memories, and Blanca in search of answers from the carnival barkers. This first episode concludes with the worrying realization that this may not be the world they, and indeed we, know after all. Dun Dun Dahhhh!

 

It's a great opening episode that begs more questions than answers and makes us want to know more, as we, like the characters, try to work out what the HELL is going on.