RTV Theory and Practice - Special Issue

this sort of classification and who have applied a number of theatrical norms to children’s programmes. And even if the editors found themselves faced with really new, created torms under established »criteria«, they would be sure to think up some sub-criteria, some supposedly exact yardsticks, like, for instance: »a play« is a programme for children from 7-12, and »a drama« tor 12 and over (being more serious, you see). All these conditions argue in favour of the word »play« being rehabilitated and being used as a suitable denotation for the whole genre. The word »composition« is also useful m explaining the idea ot something new. The term »speach play« (in Serbo-Croat »igrokaz« which figures in many historical sources, admittedly more as a loan word) would probably be come nearest to defining the essence ol modern radio drama. Taking the »speech play s« technical component into account, and this is nowadays basically determined by a magnetic tape, we might call this genre with а!1 its very indented forms »a magnetically recorded speech play« ог even abbreviate this to »magnetic speech play«. ACTING AND THE SPOKEN WORD ON RADIO л з the spoken word has remained the essence of a play up to the present (an attempts to avoid it have been doomed to failure) we shall underline here its primarily symbohc character. Radio acting and radio speech аге in many ways two-dimensional representations of the three-dimensional. Electro-acoustic waves аге like a wall surface where the most expressive images (under certain conditions) аге made using the fresco technique and still more ofTering a fresco vision of the world. Basically the actor indicates a spoken event. He creates a picture of a dialogical or monological line, of so-called spoken action, in Stanislavski s terminology. When considering the object of this demonstration, that is, to whom and why the spoken word is directed. to whom the actor is »directing« it (Stamslavski), it is clear that radio acting is basicallv different from theatre acting, not only in the techmcal sense (the radio actor’s partner is a microphone), but also m mtention and essence. The word is injected, pressed into the listener via the microphone. and he receives it through the loud speaker direcdy mto his brain, This effect is still more striking when listenmg with stereo earphones, which аге sold along with the stereo set. If the hstener listens alone in a room with sudbued lightmg, that is, under oplimal concert-hall conditions, then the previous slatement is irretutable The perception of time is the result of the observation ot an integra of the verbal event. Thus this perception is reflected on the magnetic tape like a condensed and extracted dialogue. Evervthmg takes place

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