The Rise of the Radio Play
The sound of FM static emanating from the front of my mother’s 1998 blue Ford Expedition as we drive through the underground parking garage of Houston’s City Hall.
September 2008: 3 days post-Hurricane Ike. 3 days without power. I put my ear up against the alarm clock radio in my parents’ bedroom. I listen to the news for the first time in what feels like three weeks. I hear Pynk’s “So What?” for the very first time.
My two earliest memories of the radio. Your earliest memories will surely depend on your age. For my generation, the i generation, the radio was largely replaced by the portable CD player and then by the IPod. I personally would not have a full-on relationship to the radio until I turned 16 and had one in my own car. Then, I regularly listened to NPR on my way to and from school. Sometimes I would come home long after sunset, pull up in front of my house, turn off my car lights, and just listen to whatever was on NPR. I liked the shows that had stories in them— real stories. After finally getting the nerve to actually go inside my house, I would often go to my room, sit at my desk, put on Turner Classic Movies, and do homework.
Since 2013, a lot has happened to media. Streaming sites have proliferated and podcasts have actually become mainstream and not just an earpiece for middle-aged men and older folks (heavy generalization and teasing here). What has been comforting me during quarantine is actually not theatre. Recorded and streamed theatre often yield more anxiety. Most of the time, it’s my “radio” that comforts me. My relaxation has become Crime Junkie and My Favorite Murder and The Last Podcast on the Left and New York Times’ The Daily and Radio Rental and Fake Doctors, Real Friends and Even the Rich and Pod Save the People and Just Break Up and Hit Play and Soundstage. I cope by listening and learning and absorbing all I can before the world speeds up again.
So why didn’t the Radio Play work for us, America? In Britain, playwrights write plays for the radio all the time. It’s yet another form for them to work with— another medium to write for, adapt to, and experiment with. It’s their normal. For us, it’s a new normal.
It doesn’t mean we never tried, though…
America’s most well-known failed radio experiment is, without a doubt, Orson Welles’ production of War of the Worlds. We’ve all heard the story at some point (thanks to the Tom Cruise reboot): October 30, 1938. A production airs to be performed by the Mercury Theatre on the Air. Many listeners tune in during the middle of the broadcast. And these audience members are so convinced that an actual martian invasion has occurred. The willing suspension of disbelief rises to dangerous levels for a few. Some say that some listeners even took their own lives because of the believability of the production. It’s one thing to see something happen; it’s another to hear it.
What is more powerful? Why are we, in some respects, more willing to listen today than we once were? Is it out of fear for what we might see, and thus, know to be true? That people are actually dying? That they are dying alone? That our family and friends are isolated, depressed, anxious, and pessimistic about the future? Is audio actually finally subverting our imaginations while the visual erodes it? Or, it may be the case that visual media is showing us what was while auditory media is showing us what can be.
At least, that’s how my quarantine is going.
