On May 26, 1939, Orson Welles and the Campbell Playhouse present The Things We Have,
an original radio play written by Welles, featuring Cornelia Otis Skinner and Orson
in multiple roles and members of Welles' Mercury Theater troupe.

Listen / Download Absolutely Free at wWw.OrsOnRaDio.com

Cast: Orson Welles (James Scott, Professor Shurtz, O'Shaughnessy, The Limey, John Brown),
Cornelia Otis Skinner (Mary Scott, Frau Shurtz, Lady Townsend, Polish woman, Susan B. Anthony),
Frank Readick, Everett Sloane, Kenneth Delmar, Ray Collins, Agnes Moorehead, Paul Stewart,
Kingsley Colton. Music by Bernard Herrmann. 

An interview with Cornelia Otis Skinner follows the production.

The plot is rather contemporary and telling today: an American couple adopt a child, the
immigrant orphaned son of a former European business partner. While explaining the important
role of immigrants in the history of America to the child, Welles accents the shadow falling
over Europe in 1939 by illustrating the reasons various immigrant groups have made the voyage
to America: oppression by fascist regimes, the Irish potato famine, "the dream of freedom"
in a place "where freedom is a virtue, not a crime."

There is, by growing current standards, an innocence to this tale. It is a history of immigrants
that only touches on the original invasion of America by Europeans and their subsequent oppression
of Native Americans. (Welles seems to have shared the belief that there were few Native Americans
left in 1939.) Welles' script does present slavery as commerce, rarely admitted in this time,
with an obvious tone of shame and apology.

The Things We Have does explore the meanings of freedom and democracy and serves well as an
interesting time capsule buried just before the United States joined Europe to fight against
fascism in World War II.

And there are a few amusingly dated and annoying commercials for chicken soup. Enjoy :0)>