By Daniel Buckwalter

Clean, sophisticated dialogue with tense and tight narratives make a stand this weekend at the Hult Center’s Soreng Theater.

True, Radio Redux has had to reach to the 1940s and ’50s to find these gems, but its three-day run (Nov. 8-10), which opened Friday night to a capacity audience, checks all the boxes for suspense drama where solutions are not disclosed until the last possible second.

It was the formula for more than two decades for CBS Radio and its long running “Suspense” series. From that series came two classics, Backseat Driver and Sorry, Wrong Number.

Both productions came to perfect life on Friday night, especially Sorry, Wrong Number, written by Lucille Fletcher in 1943 as basically a one-woman act, a rarity for that time.

This weekend, Rebecca Nachison plays the part of Mrs. Stevenson, an elderly, self-indulgent and invalid woman caught in the middle of a phone call about murder. She is alone in a large, drafty house.

Nachison deftly raises the suspense quotient with Mrs. Stevenson, trying to convey the seriousness of the problem to clueless phone operators (Judi Weinkauf, especially, and Diana Aday) as well as the Information operator (Achilles Massahos) and Sergeant Martin of the police department (Dan Pegoda, who did double duty as The Man in Black for the performance).

It’s wonderful to hear and feel the expectancy of the story. Will the murderer be caught? Who is supposed to be the victim? It’s a reminder of how concise the writing was for these short programs in radio’s Golden Age.

I won’t dig into the nuances of the story too much from here. In his pre-performance lecture on Friday night, Patrick Lucanio refrained from doing just that, citing “spoiler alert.”

I agree, because you are never quite sure how the story of Mrs. Stevenson’s night is going to end. It’s best to go along for the ride.

Ditto the production of Backseat Driver, written by Sally Thorson in 1953. Joe and his wife Ellie (Massahos and Weinkauf) are kidnapped by Mattrick (Pegoda), who is on the lam in California for murder charges on the East Coast.

Mattrick forces Joe and Ellie to drive through the valleys of Southern California, ultimately to the family home, where their fate awaits.

What is that fate? Again, the suspense will have to drive you to the Soreng Theater, but I could see (and hear) why both productions are considered classics of the suspense genre.

You will, too. See Radio Redux this weekend.

Sorry, Wrong Number

When: 7:30 p.m. on Friday, Nov. 8, and 2 p.m. matinees on Saturday and Sunday, Nov. 9-10

Where: Soreng Theater, Hult Center for the Performing Arts, One Eugene Center, Seventh and Willamette streets in downtown Eugene

Tickets: $23 for adults, $20 for people 65+, $16 for youths through college age and groups of five or more, available at the Hult Center box office, 541-682-5000, or online at radioreduxusa.com or hultcenter.org

Additional activities:

•    A free, illustrated behind-the-show talk by radio-film historian Patrick Lucanio 60 minutes before show time in the Hult Center’s Soreng Theater, at 6:30 p.m. Friday and 1 p.m. Saturday and Sunday.
•    A lobby exhibition of radio collectibles by curator Dennis Wright of the Radio Days Theater of the Mind Museum in Sutherlin.
•    An informal meet-the-cast encounter in the Hult Center lobby after the show.