Big Finish Productions, CD, Dramatic Reading #11. Written by: Stephen Mark Rainey. Directed by: Darren Gross.
THE PLOT
Chicago, 1929. Quentin Collins (David Selby) is in the city, enjoying the dangerous atmosphere of the Prohibition era and particularly the speakeasies, with free-flowing wine and easy women. At the Arcadia Club, a speakeasy located in the basement of the Arcadia Hotel, he meets Chandres Tessier (Lisa Richards), the club's owner... and becomes utterly entranced with her.
When he fends off an attack on Chandres, he believes the young woman is simply the target of local mobsters, whom she tells him have not reacted well to her insistence on independence. But a second attack, by an altogether less worldly assassin, leads Quentin to the realization that there is far more to Chandres than he has dared to suspect.
THOUGHTS
Blood Dance represents my first exposure to Dark Shadows on audio, and also my first exposure to the character of Quentin Collins. It actually makes a reasonable introduction to the character, as there's plenty of exposition delivered fairly painlessly. I suppose when/if I reach the point in the television series in which he is introduced, I will already know a lot of the "answers" surrounding him. But everything a listener needs to know about Quentin to enjoy this story is delivered over the course of the story. I've never seen an episode featuring him, but I never once felt that I was missing anything while listening.
Billed as a "dramatic reading," this is less a traditional audio book, and more a play with substantial narration. This could easily have been broadcast as a radio play. The music for Chandres' club is nicely atmospheric, if substantially overused. David Selby does a good job with the narration, evoking a certain noirish atmosphere through his hard-boiled intonations.
If the whole thing feels less like Dark Shadows than like an episode of the 1960's Outer Limits series, then that's still relatively easy to forgive. It's hard to recreate the atmosphere of an ongoing soap opera within the confines of a self-contained audio play, and... Well, I always rather liked the original Outer Limits, so comparing this with that is no insult. It is a bit slow-paced, but that's appropriate given the television era it is recreating.
A larger complaint is that the story is not only slow-paced, but fairly obvious. There are very few unexpected turns in the plot, and only one particularly memorable sequence. The atmosphere is sufficient to keep it engaging. To really be a success, though, at least one of three things needed to be present: a faster pace, a more surprising plot progression, or some genuinely startling or scary moments. Lacking any of these, Blood Dance maintains interest solely through atmosphere and performances. That's enough to make it a pleasant bit of listening, particularly if you do so on a rainy afternoon. But it's not enough for me to actually recommend a purchase, unless you can get a second-hand copy cheap.
Overall Rating: 6/10.
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