"RADIO ACTING IS THE HARDEST"

New Zealand Listener, Volume 11, Issue 265, 21 July 1944, Page 17

"RADIO ACTING IS THE HARDEST"

* S I sat in the Wellington Opera House and watched Susan And God, my heart sank. It was Susan not God who caused this sinking, for Susan was holding the stage and the audience with such gushing self-assurance that my courage oozed away completely. But I hadn’t realised that it was Neva CarrGlynn and not Susan I was soon to interview. Off the stage she was unassuming and friendly. In fact the only connexion between this delightful person and the over-powering Susan were the touches of make-up she was in the middle of applying. "You won’t mind if I go on with this, will you?" she asked me, motioning me to a chair. "Now, what do you want to know?" "There’s Something About the Theatre" "Well, the radio angle of your work, and how radio drama differs from the stage, and which you prefer, and which came first for you." "Well, I was born in the theatre,". she answered. "My mother and father | wete both on the stage, so of course the stage came first. I enjoy radio work very much, but there’s something about the theatre and the human contact with the audience that I would hate to lose. However, radio work is interesting, and it is very much harder work than stage performances. The hours are long, and the sound-proof recording rooms become very hot and airless. It’s a constant

* strain. My husband, John Tate, can tell you what that’s like. He does nine hours solid. recording most days of the week, often rushing from one studio to. the next and missing his lunch in order to™ fit in recording times. My recording hours aren’t»as arduous’ as®* that. Still, we both think it’s a lot of fun." She paused to renew Susan’s mouth with a touch of lip-stick. "Of course, the initial» difficulty for theatre people when. they start recording is learning to read from the script. (continued on next page)

THEY ALL AGREE (continued from previous page)

You have to use a script because of the censorship for one thing, but also to prevent drying-up. Then, too, it would be just impossible to memorise the scripts for all the shows we do in a week, It’s the scripts that cause me the most trouble, because I want to look up, and then of course, I lose my place." "Which is harder-for a radio artist to become a stage player or a stage player to become a radio artist?" "I can’t answer that, Each has its own technique. It’s possible to get things across on the stage by the use of actions, but the mike picks up the slightest hint of insincerity. Some theatre people look upon the radio as a lower art, and then of course they don’t give a good mike performance. But there ‘are others with a real flair for the mike, and they can give a much better performance over the air than a radio artist could give on the stage." Radio Has Glamsiio Just then someone rushed down the corridor outside shouting out that she had only five minutes to go. There were still lots of questions I wanted to ask her. Time for one only: was radio good publicity for the theatre? "Yes," she assured me. "There is a glamour about radio, the glamour of the unknown. Radio actors are considered to be romantic figures, and people like to see what a voice looks like in the flesh. The stage has lost this glamour to a certain extent." "But not altogether, surely?" She smiled. "We have our two-year-old baby boy in New Zealand with us, and when: he wakes us up at 5 o'clock in the morning, we don’t feel any glamour." The warning came again, and Neva Carr-Glynn gathered up the personality of Susan and said good-bye. But before she went, she took me into the dressingroom next door and introguced me to Lloyd Lamble. -But the Stage is Nicer Now the Lloyd Lamble I had watched in Susan and God had been a man wracked with failure, a man made bitter by the hopelessness of his marriage and humble by his love for his wife. In the dressing-room Lloyd Lamble was anything but depressed. He was alive with good humour. When I went in, he was struggling with a moustache that wouldn’t stick, but he waved me into a chair. "Would you rather be doing this," I asked, "than reading a script behind the microphone?" "The stage is nicer, Of course it’s an arduous life, and it demands perfect ‘health, but I like it." _ "Do you really act in front of the microphone?" "Naturally you act, but the technique on the stage is to fit the action to the ‘words, whereas all acting in radio con‘sists of movements to and from the_ ‘microphone, in» obtaining not only ~ ‘vocal effects according to the mood, but also vocal effects in relation to painting the action of the picture in sound only. On the stage you have the medium of ‘both sound and sight to assist you, over the air arerything is reduced to sound only." (continued on next page)

(continued from previous page) "What future do you think radio and the stage have before them?" "Well, I think radio as it is to-day is doomed when television comes in, but on the other hand, the stage, though it has suffered a set-back in the last 15 years by the movies, is now coming back into its own. Television ‘won't affect the stage." "One question for your radio fans. Do you live all the parts you take?" "We couldn’t possibly do that, We have 30 and 40 parts a week sometimes, and we'd be living in a mad-house if we tried to live all those." ; He pulled on his coat, adjusted his tie and revolved in a circle. ‘Do I look all right?" he asked. The calling voice ‘passed down the corridor again, "Anyway, you can tell them I like New Zealand very much," he said from the door, "I was here eight years ago in Night Must Fall, and I’ve looked forward to coming back ever since. It was winter then, too, but it’s worse this time, because I had my overcoat stolen just before I left Sydney." John Tate Prefers Films I could see John Tate for only a moment as he paused between acts, but New Zealanders know him already. In the little time he had, he. answered all my questions carefully and seriously, ’ and he brought me a cup of tea to drink. "I’m very fond of radio, but I like film work best," he began. "In fact, I played the lead in two propaganda films just before I left Australia, co-starring in the second with my wife." "How then do you feel towards the tadio?" I asked him, "Radio work is'very nerve-wracking, but it is very fine work. I consider radio playing the hardest and the most expressive of all the arts, and there is still a terrific amount of scope not yet utilised in this medium. The whole art of radio is intimacy. You must bring your character and scene to every individual at his own fireside. There is a side to radio work in Australia that you don’t know here in New Zealand, Over there, radio production can compare with anything in England or America. The *competition is acute. Most of the studios have their own theatrettes, seating 400 to 500 people, which means we actually have to give a stage performance at the same time as we broadcast," But at this moment someone came looking for John Tate. Out on the stage the curtain was rising; the anudience had stopped chattering-the play

Was on, x

V.

C.