Audio Drama Modernism by Tim Crook

Author:Tim Crook
Language: eng
Format: epub
ISBN: 9789811582417
Publisher: Springer Singapore

Distinguishing Between Modernist and Non-Modernist Phonograph Dramas

This research project is framed with the object of identifying modernist audio drama. There is, however, no identifiable manifesto setting out the necessary criteria for a confirmation of modernism in an audio or radio text. But a range of values has been established as a result of the discussion so far. It can be argued that a sound play needs to express a high degree of creative aesthetic within its own medium and it needs to be communicating something new. There has to be an advanced practice, thinking, or reaction from the audience. It could be transformative; in other words, it changes the norm. It may be the case that the sound text is part of a wider frame of communication in new technology, but its role in that would need some additional modernist factors. The authors, producers and performers could be established and recognized modernist artists or practitioners in another field. Any evidence of self-identification or association with the contemporary perception and participation in modernist activity could be a factor. A significant pattern of disruption and changing normative feelings and values as a result of the creation and publishing of the sound text can be taken into account.

The sound text should also have characteristics that are identifiable as progressive, high quality, innovative and artistically successful according to any near-contemporary book or manifesto on the production and creation of sound drama such as Gordon Lea’s The Way to Write Radio Drama (1926) and Lance Sieveking’s The Stuff of Radio (1934). Artistic initiative, enterprise and origination whether in constructed categories of high, popular, or even low ‘vernacular’ culture should be recognized. To some extent, consideration of the socio-anthropological concept of the ‘liminal’ would be relevant. There is merit in the analytical approach being flexible, but at the same time if it is too open-ended, the application of the terms modernist and modernism risk becoming vague to the point of meaninglessness.

In the foregoing audio drama texts from ‘The Wreck of the Troopship’ (1908) to the other First World War descriptive sketches made between 1914 and 1917, the question being asked in the circumstances of the cultural and socio-economic context of the time is which of these recordings stands out as a potential contributor to modernism in audio drama? It is argued that ‘The Wreck of a Troopship’ (1908) and the two ‘On Active Service’ episodes ‘Leaving For the Front’ and ‘In The Trenches’ are the strongest candidates for the modernist description and definition. The others are not unique stories, have been replicated by other record companies and do not say anything unusual and hugely thought-provoking. They do not have the capacity to significantly change feeling and opinion. They are not unusual for their time and genre. They are not hugely sophisticated in using the aesthetics and creative potential of their medium. ‘The Wreck of a Troopship’ has an emotional intensity in performance and is aesthetically successful given the age of production. The story is a legend in maritime morality and to some extent mythological in British and Scottish cultures.

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