36 Questions is a three-part podcast from the creative forces behind Limetown. It's a sort-of stage play rendered in audio form, about a couple who have reached a major bump in their marriage: Jace has discovered that his wife "Natalie" is really Judith, and has been lying about her identity since they first met years ago. He's fled to a cabin in the woods, while she's pursued him in a last-ditch attempt to save the relationship. She wants a do-over of one of the first things they did together: taking a quiz of 36 questions that lead to love.
And, as I mentioned, it's a musical.
Written and composed by Christopher Littler and Ellen Winter (and produced by the Limetown duo Skip Bronkie and Zack Akers), 36 Questions is a cleverly constructed little piece. It's like a play in its level of intimacy, in how it focuses on just two characters in a tight and impossible situation. It also adapts to the unconventional medium of a podcast by not being limited to what could be produced on a stage. The action does move around, through a raging thunderstorm, inside a moving car, and into a crowded restaurant. Clever foley work always grounds the sense of place, making it easy to imagine watching the performance in your mind's eye -- it's just that sometimes you have to imagine sitting in a theater while other times you might imagine it on your television.
Two performers have to carry the whole enterprise essentially on their own, and do so wonderfully. I've already mentioned Jonathan Groff, the "heavy hitter" who will pull many musical fans to the podcast. The other is Jessie Shelton, a lesser-known performer who actually has more of the heavy lifting to do in the story -- her character Judith is the one desperate to save a marriage Jace has already given up on, she's the one who has been lying and must explain why, she's the one narrating her crazy plan into a cell phone recording (the framing device for the entire show). This piece wouldn't work if both performers weren't 100% dialed in, and both rise to the challenges.
In any musical, the songs have to click to make the whole thing work. They do here. Like the project itself, they're often unconventional tunes, playing with discordant notes in unusual keys, toying occasionally with dropped beats and weird rhythms, and layering the performers to provide their own harmonies. But the songs are quite memorable. It's been nearly two weeks since I finished listening to the third and final part, I only listened to the podcast once through, and yet some of the songs still pop up in my mind from time to time.
My one slight reservation about 36 Questions is that, in setting up such a difficult situation for the characters, the bar to get them out of it is quite high. I'm not entirely sure how I felt about the ending. It was unexpected, though, like the podcast itself, I suppose -- so not necessarily a bad thing.
At roughly 50 minutes per "chapter," you're not looking at a deep time commitment here, certainly not compared to a typical podcast or even a fully-produced audiobook. I'd grade it an A-. If you're up for something experimental and different, I'd give 36 Questions a try.
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