Audience Guide Researched and Written by Tina Kakuske

From the Viola to the Theater

Playwright Michael Hollinger has a Bachelor of Music in viola from Oberlin and a Master of Arts in theatre from Villanova. Hollinger considers his plays as compositions. “Plays are music to me; characters are instruments, scenes are movements; tempo, rhythm and dynamics are critical; and melody and counterpoint are always set in relief by rests—beats, pauses, the spaces in between.” In fact, instruction is included in the script for Red Herring where actors should briefly pause and it is indicated as a Beat.

Red Herring – Idiom du jour

A red herring is an idiom that is a “piece of information, clue, or subject that is deliberately or accidentally used to mislead, distract, or divert attention away from the central, most important issue.” This idiom derives from the practice of using a pungent, salted, and smoked fish (herring) to draw hunting hounds off a scent. The playwright uses a literary “red herring” to mislead the audience into believing one thing, when another may be true. How many red herrings can you find in the play? The nonpungent, idiomatic kind, of course.

Setting the Scene: A Look Back at 1952

• “I Love Lucy” is the top ranked television show
• The U.S. President is Harry S. Truman and Gen. Dwight D. Eisenhower is elected to succeed as president in November
• Princess Elizabeth becomes Queen after the death of King George VI of Great Britain
• “The Today Show” premieres on NBC
• Operation Ivy: The United States successfully detonates the first hydrogen bomb
• 58,000 cases of polio are reported in the U.S, the worst recorded outbreak
• The Pulitzer Prize is awarded to Herman Wouk for his novel “The Caine Mutiny”

Comedy Noir with a Healthy Dose of Farce

As described at Michaelhollinger.com, Red Herring is summarized as, “Three love stories, a murder mystery, and a nuclear espionage plot converge in this noir comedy about marriage and other explosive devices.”

What is Comedy Noir? It is a genre/subgenre mashup that combines “classic hard-boiled detective and crime fiction stereotypes with dark humor.” Red Herring is an excellent example of this genre. The humor is not overly dark because the play also contains elements of farce (another subgenre of comedy) through the use of plot absurdities, mistaken identities, and ridiculous situations.

Heard in the Play

Shazam – the word is first found in comics in the 1940s and used as a magic word to cause lightning to transform Billy Batson into the superhero Shazam!… used here as slang to emphasize a statement or happening

Commie – derogatory, slang shortened version of the word communist, became a catchword in the Cold War era

I Like Ike – a memorable campaign slogan for the Eisenhower presidential bid… Disney produced an animated ad with this catchy jingle – “You like Ike, I like Ike, everybody likes Ike for President. Bring out the banners, beat the drums, we’ll take Ike to Washington.”

When the Red, Red Robin (Comes Bob, Bob Bobbin Along) – a song written by Harry Woods in 1926 and performed by many artists over the years… not known to be a communist anthem

Velveeta and AI

Velveeta plays a role in Red Herring, so while looking for a way to spin Velveeta into an interesting subject, AI was consulted indirectly by Googling this question – Has Velveeta been used as a legitimate method for passing classified or covert secrets? The answer came back as negative, but other methods of passing secrets were detailed: microdots, hollowed coins, dead drops, cryptology and invisible ink. The only legitimate secrets Velveeta regularly holds are to hide veggies from the kids, give medicine to the dog, and make a sneaky fudge!

Did You Know?

• Red Herring won the 2000 Barrymore Award for Outstanding New Play
• A kipper is a whole, fresh, butterflied, smoked herring traditionally eaten at breakfast
• A dory is a small, flat-bottomed boat with high flaring sides, sharp bow, and deep V-shaped transom
• The mercury dime does not contain the image of the Roman God Mercury – It is Liberty with a winged Phrygian cap meant to symbolize freedom of thought
• True Detective was a real magazine founded in 1924 and it “paved the way for modern crime journalism and pop culture”
• The secret code in Red Herring – pelican/belican/helican – was actually written by Dixon Lanier Merritt, not Ogden Nash
• Joe McCarthy is portrayed in Red Herring as being married with an adult daughter in 1952, when in reality he did not marry until 1953, and adopted a daughter in 1957

_Sources

_{https://grokipedia.com/page/michael_hollinger}

_{https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kipper}

_{https://www.tasteray.com/articles/movie-comedy-noir-movies}

_{https://michaelhollinger.com/wp/index.php/red-herring/}

_{https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Michael_Hollinger}

_{https://playbill.com/article/opus-michael-hollingers-new-play-about-musicians-begins-at-phillys-arden-com-130195}

_{https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/1952_in_the_United_States#:~:text=April%2023%20%E2%80%93%20A%20nuclear%20test,architecture%20in%20the%20United%20States.}

_{https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/1952_in_film}

_{https://www.history.com/a-year-in-history/1952}

_{https://www.onthisday.com/events/date/1952}

_{https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/red%20herring}

_{https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Red_herring}

_{https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/dory}

_{https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mercury_dime}

_{https://www.andrucki.catapult.bates.edu/red-herring.html}

_{https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/True_Detective_(magazine)}

_{https://www.collinsdictionary.com/us/dictionary/english/shazam}

_{https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Shazam_(DC_Comics)}

_{https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/commie}

_{https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/When_the_Red,_Red_Robin_(Comes_Bob,_Bob,_Bobbin%27_Along)}

_{https://americanhistory.si.edu/collections/object/nmah_529457}

_{https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YP7WaUPACuY}

_{Baker, John M. (2007). “Intrigue and Delight: The Comedy of Michael Hollinger”. Comédie du Jour: A Festival of Plays by Michael Hollinger (Theatrical program published by Iowa Summer Rep). University of Iowa.}