Tom Stoppard has written many acclaimed plays for radio, among them Albert's Bridge, Professional Foul, and The Dog It Was That Died. The most acclaimed, I would argue, is Artist Descending a Staircase. This play gets at the primal nature of reality, using the “blindness” of radio drama to great effect. Elissa Guralnick, in her book Sight Unseen, covers the play in detail.
This blog is not intended to be a means of distributing radio drama, by the way – I offer only these few plays as an educational opportunity, because the unfortunate circumstances that surround radio drama, in terms of distribution and socialization, make it difficult for people to access these plays otherwise. My goal is to facilitate a deeper understanding and study of the medium, and to promote discussion of it as well. That's why I am posting these plays, specifically the ones that Ms. Guralnick discusses in her highly recommended book.
There are a few plays that she discusses which I do not have copies of, particularly David Rudkin's Cries from Casement as His Bones Are Brought to Dublin and Robert Ferguson's Transfigured Night. If anyone has a copy of them please let me know, they are very important to the critical discussion of audio drama.
Download Artist Descending a Staircase, Part One
No comments:
Post a Comment