Ellison's single outing with Warner Audio made an excellent package, although one must suffer through cheesy announcements and melodramatic electronic music -- 90 seconds at the start, 5 to 20 seconds at each Roman numeraled break in "Boy," and occasionally even under the narration. (The ticky-tacky organ that comes in with Topeka is kind of amusing, however.) Interestingly, Blood's language is refined even beyond what one finds in the most recent printed version (The Essential Ellison, both 35th and 50th): A "Maybe" becomes a "Perhaps"; "nit chick" becomes "nitwit"; a number of Blood's "yeahs" become yeses; "is that right?" turns into "is that correct?"; "burned bad" upgrades to "badly burned"; and Blood never says "chick" or "broads," the way it reads on the page, but always "person" or "women."
Warner is to be commended for keeping not only all the rough language, unexpurgated, of the original story, but even Ellison's alteration of "blew the back off his head" to "blew the back of the muthafucka's head off" in the gymnasium shootout.
Ellison makes many incidental emendations in dialogue, particularly -- extra repetitions of names or critical words. Significant additions that are not in the Essential version include the sentence "Some of them were even in old missile silos" in Vic's description of the downunders; the addition of "Pentecostalists" to the list of inhabitants; and changing "blood all over the wrestling mat" after Vic forces Quilla June to "stuff all over the wrestling mat, wet."
The vocal performance is superb. Ellison gives Blood a slightly British accent, Vic a youthful Brooklyn one. Quilla June is only acceptable, but the hayseeds in Topeka are a gas. He does a cute Jimmy Cagney imitation for a sentence near the end, and "I ... didn't ... eat" is delivered with nice delicacy. The final line is perfect: just a little insistent, desperate, and defensive, as if Vic is not entirely convinced.
This recording of " 'Repent, Harlequin ...'" is not the same as the 1976 Alternate World. You can tell right away because the ticking clock is slower, Ellison's voice lower and richer, and he elides "what is it all about" to "what's it all about" in the first sentence of the later version. There's more bass resonance altogether, not only in the voice but in the production as a whole.
Yet it is hard to rate one version over the other: Though the overall sound is better on the Warner, Ellison's aesthetic choices are open to question. For example, the Ticktockman's voice tends to be quieter and smoother in the 1976 version; more musical, emphatic, and openly menacing in the 1985. I'm not sure that's an improvement. The Harlequin sounds more like a regular guy, earnest but uncertain, a harried and confused nebbish, in the former; in the latter he starts out a nasal Carol Burnett from Brooklyn, more purposely goofy yet in control, but a Yiddish accent creeps in through the bullhorn, and then he loses his nasality and goofiness in the confrontation with the Ticktockman. I also prefer Alice's wanness and greater lack of inflection in the earlier recording; she actually achieves a little mike distortion in 1985.
This is not to say the 1985 is a bad piece of work, although it's a shame about the announcements and "music." Other publisher sloppiness: Side three of "Boy" is labeled "Repent" on the cassette, and at the conclusion of side four an announcer comes on to explain what you've been listening to and encourages you to write for a free catalog with a complete listing of other programs "at the address you'll find on the label of this cassette." There isn't one, of course.
This version of these stories was reissued in 1999 by Dove Entertainment (later Audio Literature), as part of the collection, “The Voice From the Edge: I Have No Mouth and I Must Scream.”
