T5#60 The Sacrifice

Episode number: 60
Network broadcast date: Friday, October 23, 1964
The Sacrifice
Genre: Melodrama
Author: Raphael David Blau
Production number: 57
Production date: Wednesday, September 23, 1964
Director: Ted Bell

Plotline: A construction company executive’s loyalty is tested when the CEO asks him to send his own son to deal with a radiation leak at their new site. He can either sacrifice his career or his son’s life.

Listen: https://archive.org/details/T5project/Theater+Five+641023+060+The+Sacrifice.flac

Cast: Maurice Tarplin, Staats Cotsworth, June Graham, Arlene Walker, Jack Manning

Notes:

Episode opens with a spoken plot description rather than an opening scene, and does not have Foy announcing over opening music. 

It is announced that it is a retelling of a Biblical narrative. It is an adaptation of Genesis' Abraham and Isaac story set in corporate America, with the Biblical characters’ names changed to Abbey and Ira. Blau's father was a rabbi, and obviously well-versed in Biblical writings and their meanings, and he would use the themes in his scripting, including character names. 

The episode was recorded about a week after the solemn holy days of Yom Kippur but was not broadcast until a month later. It's not known if the observance calendar had any bearing on the selection of the production date.

The episode is fascinating, and full of these types of references. It may be biographical. Some of the story may seem stilted and forced, but once you are aware of the background, the experience becomes quite rich. Blau was intensely curious about psychology and life's ultimate issues. He explored these issues in many of his T5 scripts.

The basics

• Abraham = Abbie
• Isaac = Ira
• Sarah = Sally
• Altar of (animal) sacrifice = atomic reactor
• The last name "Terahson" = Terah was the father of Abraham, therefore the name "Abbie Terahson" in the story identifies Ira as the metaphorical son of Abraham in this story.

The boss is named "L.O. Hay" and "elohe" in Hebrew means "little god" in a demeaning sense. The boss is mean and full of himself. The phrase is usually "el elohe" which means "mighty God." Blau is setting up a stark contrast as the story's character thinks he is like a god.

The reference to "Red Rapids" still has not been identified. Red in water is often in the Bible as blood. It's not a Biblical place, and may have no meaning to the story other than a personal reference or being purely made up. "Red" - adom (Hebrew), related to adam, or "earth." "Rapids" is a fast-flowing and turbulent part of the course of a river. It could just refer to the chaos of the atomic age of the 50s and 60s

At 1:40 LO Hay says he sent three men to inspect Red Rapids with no results - likely a reference to the three angels/men who visited Abraham (Gen 18).

There are other names in the story just before the mid-show break.

Nancy - Hebrew name refers to "filled with grace" -- she does not answer LO Hay, and implies that LO Hay is not filled with grace, but has evil intentions.

LO Hay's secretary is Annie -- Hebrew "ani" - is the English pronoun "I". As the story progresses, LO Hay keeps asking questions of people who are part of his daily business life and gets no answers from them. It seems LOH is incapable of introspection (taking to himself, i.e. having a conscience, ability to examine and amend one's life) about what he does.

LOH was disappointed the guards at the gates were not happy, perhaps referring to the gates of heaven, and that he would fail in the final judgment at the end of his life.

Blau's father was a very well-known, influential, and highly respected rabbi. Rabbi Joel Blau died at 49 in 1927 in London. Raphael grew up in a religious and observant household, and was well-educated in Torah, scriptures, writings, and all aspects of Jewish life. 

Rabbi Blau was recruited by a British synagogue to move from the US and relocate his family to London. https://www.jta.org/archive/rabbi-joel-blau-dies-in-london-at-age-of-49
Raphael David Blau was 15 when his father died. The family moved back to the US sometime after his death, but it is not known exactly when.

The end of the T5 story may be biographical in that Blau may have been pressured into following his father's footsteps, and chose not to. This fits in with the ending of Ira refusing to take part in the deal at the end. Or, it could be that Blau did not continue in observant practice of the faith he was raised in. In Raphael's obituaries there are no indications he was affiliated with any temple or synagogue or other religious organization.

 

Isaac became one of the patriarchs of Israel, and continued the line of Abraham. In this story, Ira (likely Raphael Blau writing about himself), chooses not to.

The emphasis in the T5 plotline that everyone knew the reactor was "safe" and that Ira's taking the money and the position were sure things were the exact opposite of the Biblical storyline. Doing the opposite seems to be what RDB did with his career.

His father clearly influenced him in his interest in writing and probing life's big questions in his work. Rabbi Blau left the US to move to London; Raphael Blau left what could have led to a comfortable academic career at Columbia University in New York City to pursue his scripting career in radio and movies. Blau's writing is often thoughtful and not what it seems on the surface. A prior T5 episode, Jump, Jump is a deeper discussion of human behavior than it seems.

In the 1983-01-19 Baltimore MD Sun, Blau wrote about his experiences writing for radio, and relates some of the story of his father's recruitment for London. Raphael used it in a plotline in the series One Foot in Heaven about a real-life Protestant minister. The series was based on the minister's biography. Blau had exhausted story ideas from the book. His account of the experience is interesting and yields some background about what made RDB's writing so interesting.

Special thanks to Scott Mahan and Kenneth J Narde who helped contribute to this documentation at the Old Time Radio Researchers Facebook page and groups.io forum.