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The L.A. Theatre Works production of “The Graduate” at the Flynn Center for the Performing Arts on Wednesday, Oct. 23 took a somewhat novel approach toward a classic film. 

Its theatrical format did away with traditional sets, as the cast instead performed in the style of a radio play solely performed acousticly. Actors performed separately from each other, with some taking on multiple parts, speaking into microphones and live sound effects were enacted on stage. 

The unconventional format could have run the risk of not allowing the audience to fully immerse themselves in the story being told, but the familiarity of the original story to an overwhelming majority of the audience was evident. 

This was displayed by a show of hands when artistic director Brian Kite -who himself cited it as one of his all-time favorites- inquired as to how many in attendance had seen the original 1967 film, was more than enough to make up for this. 

Mike Nichols’ film, based on the 1963 novel by Charles Webb, was and is something of a cultural phenomenon, ranked by many as one of their favorite films of all time, and has even been ranked as the no. 17 best film of all time by the American Film Institute’s Top 100 list. 

A stage adaptation of both Webb’s novel and Calder Willingham and Buck Henry’s screenplay proved to be both a great opportunity and somewhat of a challenge for Terry Johnson, who shepherded its original Broadway run. 

The chosen format of a live radio show only heightened the pressure on the script to recreate the sparkling and witty dialogue of the original, with emphasis placed away from set, costume design and props.

The story and dialogue were played for laughs for the most part, with the reflective melancholy air of the original put aside in favor of a more straightforward comedic tone. 

This can be attributed in part again to the nature of the format, which required its performers to perform in a more heightened manner than may have been expected. 

This approach, while perhaps not as immersive as a more conventional production, helped provide the evening with a sense of spontaneity and immediacy, and its success was evident in the consistent laughter from the audience.

Overall, the combination of an unconventional theatrical format and familiar material seemed to work for the audience. 

“I felt that the physical limitations of the format were hard to get past,” sophomore Garrett Garcia said. “But it meant that the actors had to work extra hard and I think it worked because by the end I was definitely immersed in the story.”