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Audio Drama Session 3
Monday 2nd March - The Actors Centre, 7PM Ok, so this is my first blog for the factory… so you’ll have to excuse any major accidental omissions or violations of blogging etiquette. Tim mistakenly perceived my constant scribbling in notebook to mean that I was scrupulously recording the nights events and all the profoundly inspiring and thought provoking discussion that occurred therein… as opposed to just writing random words and phrases like ‘Sound is to radio what a torch is to fog’… or something to that content. Ok - so, from what I can remember, the evening took this form: We arrive. Jeremy Mortimer is leading the session. We discuss what happened last week. (I was absent) General upshot seems to be that we learned a lot about microphones. And that it is intensity rather than volume that is the preferred vocal quality on radio. And various other invaluable pieces of information that can be found in more detail on the session 2 blog. Jeremy then told us an interesting anecdote about when he was working on radio with Paul Schofield, who after speaking each line of text would look up and stare at a point on the wall before speaking the next line. Jeremy, bemused and curious, eventually asked him what he was looking at – the actor replies that he is imagining what he has just said, thus allowing the audience time to imagine it before he says the next line. I found this rather interesting and note worthy. We are then given an extract of verse entitled ‘The Atheist's Tragedy’ by Cyril Tourneur (who, according to my sources was born c.1575 in County Cork, Ireland. Was a dramatist who enjoyed his greatest success during the reign of King James I of England. His best-known work is The Revenger's Tragedy (1607), a play which has alternatively been attributed to Thomas Middleton. Died on the 28th February, 1626 around the age of 51.) The extract is read by three actors – Maddie, Alex B and Simon. When initially questioned upon images conjured during the reading, the following emerge: Armour, blood, sand and sea. Jeremy suggests that we, the audience, could make the sound of the sea in order to create more atmosphere. No one volunteers to generate the woossshhhh – hhhhuuuuusshh noises that are required. An intellectual debate subsequently ensues amongst the 29 actors present on the subject of ‘How do we do the sea?’ Jeremy eventually decides to split us into two groups – incoming tide (woooooooosh) and outgoing tide (huuuusssshhhh). John conducts. The Atheist’s Tragedy is re-read and hey presto – more imagery is conjured. The verse is then split into 6 parts, with 6 actors – and read as small segments (without the oceanic accompaniment). It is then re-read, with each actor directing their segment at the person next to them. Another debate then emerges about the clarity of understanding between the different readings – Jo tends to listen to the sound of verse, rather than what is actually being said. She asks how we conquer this. Should we conquer this? Jeremy replies perhaps we don’t have to? Charlie says he'd prefer to hear more disassociative sounds being played with... like Tarkovsky. I can’t remember what happened next – short term memory loss issues… We then form 5 groups of 5 or 6 actors/writers. For the purposes of tonight, I am to be a writer. Jeremy distributes copies of 3 poems – The Inexorable Sadness of Pencils by Theodore Roethke, The Plunge by Ezra Pound and Infant Sorrow by William Blake (my group gets this – Marianne, Catherine, Tim, Lucy, Amanda et moi). We are instructed to present these poems in a particular style of our own choosing – and we will also be improvising/devising something from them… I don’t know what the other groups did at this point – but there was quite a moderate amount of screaming from group 3. My group discusses Infant Sorrow, and what we can do with it… we decide to do something from the perspective of the child. We explore sounds from within the room. Tim is heartbeat. Catherine is blood. Marianne is distant screaming mother. I scribble the following: Darkness. Just darkness. Nothing but warmth. Deep crashing.Vibrations and peace. I know nothing. Beautiful blissful nothing. I am complete. The respective pieces are performed They are all fantastic and diverse. My memory loss is coming in again here – so you’ll have to refer to the individual pieces when they are uploaded (?) I think my favourite was group 4’s pencil’s piece – with the wind. Very strong images of dust floating in stagnant air and settling in scholarly whiskers. Particularly interesting and powerful is the difference in perspective and the ability to create sound on a microscopic level – the scratching of a pencil on paper vs woman screaming in childbirth. We discuss the degree to which we are permitted to subject the audience to intentionally excruciating or boring sounds. We decide there probably isn’t a limit and plan to explore this in great depth next time. I very much enjoyed this session, as I did the last – I have no radio experience whatsoever, so the learning curve is steep but exciting and rewarding. So much potential to play with and explore. New realms. Jolly good fun. Enjoyed doing Infant Sorrow, and very flattered with the feedback. Other people note particularly how jarring the change from my fragmented poetry to Blake’s rhythmic verse is, and how cleverly this mimics the rhythm of life. I nod as if I had intended this all along. Jeremy said at the end of the session that he's found so many writers regard radio as TV without pictures... and how much they miss the potential to use and explore sound. We should be always thinking in terms of sound. Hence: Torch in the Fog. Faye Thomas |
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| Started By | Thread Subject | Replies | Last Post | ||
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| Jeremyjmortimer | Audio pieces | 4 | Mar 20 2009, 6:30 AM EDT by AleFleming | ||
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Thread started: Mar 4 2009, 10:21 AM EST
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I'm sure they'll be posted on the blog soon, but if anyone can't wait to hear them again, they are available to listen to at www.audiotheque.co.uk - and you can also hear Kieran in Drew Pautz's piece Prodigal Son which I mentioned at the session.
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| Crerar | Great | 0 | Mar 6 2009, 8:26 PM EST by Crerar | ||
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Thread started: Mar 6 2009, 8:26 PM EST
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Great to listen to these pieces, they are all really interesting, and very strange. I was a bit terrified by infant sorrow 2, and had to stop listening for fear of nightmares! I particularly liked the Desk Job. It’s amazing how simply you can set up a scene, using minimal sounds, pencil sharpener etc, and as the listener your imagination is allowed the time to conjure up the images and atmosphere. For some reason I was left with very clear images in this later one, not sure why? Maybe the simplicity, I got a sense I was being invited in to listen, or I was eavesdropping, rather than being spoken too, or having an atmosphere forced upon me…if that makes sense?
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| Federay | david mamet on radio drama | 1 | Mar 4 2009, 10:55 AM EST by RhysMeredith | ||
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Thread started: Mar 4 2009, 4:05 AM EST
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that essay I mentioned a few threads ago is called "Radio Drama" and is in "Writing in Restaurants" by David Mamet. And I have posted the book it's in on the Book Club page: "A Whore's Profession".
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