RADIO REVIEW : Tom Topor Updates Moliere

Someone once said “radio drama is like silent movies, except the reverse.”

The L.A. Theatre Works’ “The Play’s the Thing” radio series confirms the wisdom and whimsy of that definition with its adaptation of Moliere’s “The Miser” updated to Little Italy in Depression-era New York (tonight at 10 on KCRW-FM, 89.9).

Playwright Tom Topor has turned Moliere’s entitled miser into an aging bootlegger, bluntly retitled the social satire “Cheap” and refashioned a flavorful gallery of Italian-American characters barely once removed from their 17th-Century French cousins.

Director Peggy Shannon and a 11-member cast notable for ripe ethnic accents recorded the two-hour production before a live audience in a Santa Monica hotel, where L.A. Theatre Works and KCRW, under producer Susan Loewenberg, have recorded some 15 radio plays this year. A new radio drama is aired every Friday.

Listening to radio drama, in contrast to nostalgic forays into ‘30s and ‘40s radio serials, is a curiously demanding pastime, compelling viewers weaned on pictures to imagine the faces and backgrounds that sounds suggest and to concentrate on language. It’s almost a shock to the system. That’s why the punctuated laughter from the studio audience is distracting. They’re seeing the radio actors, and for the listener at home the lines seldom seem that funny.

In the case of “Cheap,” it helps if you are familiar with Moliere’s play, but it’s not essential. Greed, romantic love and pretension translate pretty well. The two major reasons for the show’s success are the rich voices of Al Ruscio’s fortune-hoarding father and the flitty, delicious tones of his daughter, played distinctively by Valerie Landsburg.

Orville Stoeber’s original score and innumerable references to cuisine help establish a sly sense of Little Italy, and Jon Cryer, Ed Begley Jr. and Rue McClanahan in a Dolly Levi role contribute to the fun.