Disembodied Emotion

New Zealand Listener, Volume 18, Issue 446, 9 January 1948, Page 13

Disembodied Emotion

ORLD THEATRE continues to deny the often-expressed opinion that radio is an art of its own, and that plays written before its introduction are not so likely to succeed over the air as plays written especially for radio, with the limitations and possibilities of radio used as’an integral part of the script. As yet I have not heard any radio play half as exciting as any of the World Theatre plays, which is due, I suppose, only to the fact that we haven't a radio playwright with the genius of Shaw, Euripides, Marlowe, or Rostand; plays in this series, although a certain amount of cutting and arrangement must be done in order to fit them to the purposes of radio, have been presented practically as they came from the pens of their creators, and the power they possess for radio listeners is unbelievably intense: In the poetic drama, where words are of vital importance, the absence of stage-effect can be a blessing in disguise. In Dr. Faustus, for instance, a stage performance with human devils would be a bit of an anti-climax after the horrific vision which the listener's imagination, aided by the words alone, can conjure up. As*for L’Aiglion, surely radio is well suited to such things as the "Jean, Pierre and Paul" monologue; suited, too, to the soliloquising of Metternich over the dead Emperor’s cocked hat; and certainly suited to that grim charnel-house vision of the horrors of the battlefield. Emotions aroused in the listener by the disembodied radio voice can be immense, especially when with the combination: of a fine play and a vital performance, as exemplified in almost any example of World Theatre. My only regret is that this splendid series is gradually drawing to a close.