Soap Gets in Your Ears

"I came in and asked [CBS and Procter & Gamble, the show's owner] if we could do a podcast," she recalls, "and literally the answer was 'What is a podcast?' " After a quick tutorial -- it's a way to distribute multimedia files online, people -- and further discussion, Wheeler rounded up equipment and recruited Morrison. Since October, "GL," as it's called on the spiffy digital-age-ish logo, has been podcasting every episode, which is about 25 minutes long once the edits are done. (The TV show is 39 minutes, with the rest of the hour taken up by commercials.) A month later, Wheeler launched "Guiding Light Lite," a 10-minute download that follows one strand of the story and typically ends with an interview with an actor. Both podcasts are available at 3 p.m. the day the show airs, and every episode, archived right back to the first podcast, is free.

This isn't "GL's" only attempt at digital up-to-dateness. Written into the plot is the existence of a local gossip blog -- http://springfieldburns.com/ -- whose creator is a source of nonstop and fruitless speculation among "GL" characters. Embarrassing photos of Springfield's most villainous keep turning up on the site, causing humiliation and much tut-tutting. The postmodern twist here is that when fans of "Guiding Light" type "springfieldburns.com" into their real-life Web browsers, they visit the very site that the characters in the show appear so vexed by. So anyone can log on and see what is ostensibly mortifying Reva, Cassie and everyone else.

"Family first, huh?" read a recent Springfieldburns.com home-page headline, with hellish flames flickering behind the head of a character. "Not for this Springfield mom."

"As the World Turns," Procter & Gamble's other soap, now podcasts, too. Are these high-tech extra-credit projects roping in viewers? Barbara Bloom, who is in charge of daytime programming for CBS, says daily downloads number in the tens of thousands, though "Guiding Light" remains next to last among the soaps in TV ratings. (Only NBC's relative newcomer, "Passions," performs worse.)

Just as telling, Morrison has yet to achieve the cult status that she richly deserves. Her vowel-flattening Midwestern accent and gift for condensing tragedy into haiku is one of the podcast's best features.

"There have been some questions on fan sites, like 'Whose voice is that?' " Morrison says. "But the only person I really hear from about the podcast is my dad."

Maybe if she identified herself at some point during her narration, her profile would rise. But the point isn't to make Morrison famous. It's to introduce a somewhat fusty medium to the Internet. Though forever packed with marital and extramarital intrigue, the soaps have seldom truly pushed the envelope when it comes to mores. In the soaps of the '50s and '60s, married couples slept in separate beds and divorce was considered a sin.

"If a woman had an affair, not only did she not get the man, he usually died," says Julie Poll, co-author of "Guiding Light: The Complete Family Album." "Boating accidents and car crashes were favorite punishments."

"Guiding Light," which began on radio in 1937, is racier than ever, though certain boundaries remain. Nowadays, if a "GL" character gets pregnant, she might mention abortion, but if the baby can't be shoehorned into the plot, bet on a miscarriage.

What hasn't changed much in recent decades is the core feel of the show: the real-time pace, the square-dance approach to coupling and uncoupling, the endless churn of tantrums and make-ups, the passion-related crime sprees. The atmosphere of stillness and doom that is the genre's hallmark is unchanged, too. Everything seems to take place in some windowless netherworld where background noise has been muted and conversations end with a wounded, quizzical squint.

In reality, "Guiding Light" is taped in a studio where a director has to shout for silence before every take. During a recent visit to the set, a dozen or so stagehands and cameramen fluttered around a bed where Kim Zimmer (who plays Reva) and Jordan Clarke (Billy) were supine and awaiting their cue. Someone asked Clarke to scootch further down the bed.

"I feel like a mouse that's been glued to a board," Clarke muttered dryly, staring up at the ceiling, willing the strength to scootch and angling for a laugh.

Watching, you're struck with this rather basic thought: It's a job, working on a soap. People get bored. People cut up. With five shows a week, the pace is kind of grueling. (Two takes, says a stage guy, is pretty much the max.) It looks exotic enough to an outsider, but everyone here seems like a salaried worker engaged in the classic American enterprise of selling a product. The product just happens to be a story that will never end.

" 'Guiding Light,' Episode 15,013, Scene 5!" shouted the stage manager. Then a countdown, then a very brief bit of action and dialogue, which, per request of the show's publicist, will not be revealed here.

Once the scene was finished, there was a brief moment of quiet. Then Clarke, still lying on his back, slowly raised his arm, elbow bent, middle finger extended. The crew erupted with laughter.

Yes, the gap between the solemnity of the characters and the ironic detachment of the actors playing them is gloriously immense. At one point, Zimmer played a teary, earnest scene in which Reva mulled over her cancer and yearningly stared into the heavens, wishing upon a star. Between takes, she chatted with a sound guy about the gas mileage of her new SUV.

"Sixty-five dollars to fill it up," she sighed, in her nightgown. "Can you believe it?"