Narodowy geniusz, czyli portret Fryderyka Chopina w Ostatnim koncercie Stanisławy Fleszarowej-Muskat

The drama Ostatni koncert (The Last Concert) (1960) by Stanisława Fleszarowa-Muskat, originally written as a radio play, sits on the border between popular and fictional literature. The text was intended for a wide audience. The plot focuses on a single event – Frédéric Chopin’s last concert in Warsaw, just before his departure to France, which took place on October 11, 1830. Youth, as it was understood by the romantics, turns out to be a time that shaped Chopin’s artistic personality. In this drama, the independence background is important as it highlights Chopin’s ties to the fate of his homeland, which gives his music a patriotic and revolutionary dimension. In sounds, Chopin’s brilliant music expresses the essence of the Polish soul: its nobility and love of freedom. Chopin’s concert took place at a turning point both for the composer and for the nation whose spirit he expressed through sounds. The drama about Chopin, the national genius, is at the same time a drama about a national community that acquires its identity by identifying with his music.

The Tradition of Polish Radio Reportage

This article is an attempt to present the history of Polish radio reportage in a synthetic way, pointing out the most important features of the genre as well as the specificity of the Polish School of Reportage. The qualities developed there (including the “purity of form” and authenticity of sound) became dis­tinguishing elements of the Polish reportage in the international arena. The artistic value of the audio creations makes today’s radio art researchers situate both radio play and sound reportage in the category of audio literature. This paper presents the development of radio reportage, taking into account the his­torical context as well as the communication perspective. Pointing to the aes­thetic function of the message, the reportage is defined as a work of radio art, considered in terms of artistic impact.

SERGEY PROKOFIEV AND SERGEY SLONIMSKY: A DOUBLE PORTRAIT IN THE INTERIOR OF THEATER, CINEMA AND RADIO

This article demonstrates the general principles in the work of S. S. Prokofiev and S. M. Slonimsky, artists who are brightly individual and bold in their creative search. This thesis is confirmed by the two composers' memoirs: Prokofiev's Autobiography and Slonimsky's "Burlesques, Elegies, Dithyrambs in Despicable Prose". The author touches upon the theme "the Composer and the Drama Theater", which reveals the approach of the director (G. A. Tovstonogov) and the composer (S. M. Slonimsky) to the musical design of the performance based on the novel "Quiet Flows the Don" by M. A. Sholokhov. The paper provides excerpts from the book of the famous actor, screenwriter and director A. V. Batalov, as well as his views on radio dramaturgy as the director of a radio play about the childhood of Sergey Prokofiev. It is emphasized that A. V. Batalov made an accent on the leading role of the composer's works in compositional dramaturgy of the radio performance.

Radio drama as art and industry: A case study on the textual and institutional entanglements of the radio play The Slow Motion Film

This article argues that in order to obtain a deeper comprehension of the radio play as a work of art, one should complement the dominant method of textual analysis with industry analysis. This argument is illustrated by means of a case study on the 1967 Belgian radio play The Slow Motion Film. This radio play is an adaptation (in fact, a re-adaptation as there had been radio adaptations in 1940 and 1950) of the innovative theatre play The Slow Motion Film (1922) by Herman Teirlinck. In order to explain the creative choices of the radio play, which are largely based on the pursuit of fidelity to the source work, the institutional aspect is of great importance. The goal of honouring Teirlinck and highlighting the cultural-historical importance of his work fitted within the broader cultural-educational mandate of the public broadcaster, which prevented a more inventive adaptation. This article argues that in order to gain a better understanding of the radio play as a text, the industrial context also needs to be studied. Furthermore, this article contributes to the largely unwritten history of the radio play in the Low Countries.

Saint Casement

This chapter explores Casement’s afterlives in drama, arguing that the intermedial recycling of various aspects of Casement’s life, legacy and politics continue to fascinate dramatists. The first play discussed is George Bernard Shaw’s Saint Joan (1923) and, reading Shaw’s play alongside copious archival sources, this chapter seeks to assess the extent of the relationship - political, historical and imaginative - between Shaw and Casement. David Rudkin’s radio play, Cries from Casement as His Bones are Brought to Dublin, uses the power of voice and accent to eruditely and creatively stage Casement’s contradictory and evolving sense of identity. Finally, this chapter explicates how Martin McDonagh’s use of Casement in The Lieutenant of Inishmore (2001) is glancing but powerful, testifying to the power that Irish history can continue to hold on contemporary politics, even if it is misunderstood and misplaced.

“I Say, Can You Hear Me?”

Harold Pinter’s 1959 radio play A Slight Ache serves to illuminate how the constraints of radio drama provided Pinter with the opportunity to examine themes such as passive aggression and competition within outwardly bland social interactions, in an entirely new form. Pinter’s approach to radio drama goes against the principles of clarity and unambiguousness that the BBC attempted to push its writers towards at the time, instead favouring the unease and uncertainty that a total lack of visual information allows him to visit upon his audience. In particular, Pinter’s decision to render the character of the Matchseller entirely mute allows his presence to constantly challenge the listening audience, forcing them to constantly revaluate the validity of everything they hear. Through Flora and Edward’s contradictory assessments of the Matchseller, their respective goals, desires and insecurities are exposed, shining increasing light on their divergent views of the world around them. The combination of the Matchseller’s silence and the total lack of visual information given about him allow The Matchseller to become an increasingly obscure, changeable presence in the play. A Slight Ache emerges as a play so well suited to the constraints of radio that later stage and television productions only serve to expose how added visuals actually render the play far less effective, closing off the opportunity for multiple interpretations of the Matchseller to coexist, as they do in the original radio format.

O kulawym bogu Hefajstosie. W antycznej pracowni Jana Dormana

The paper is an analysis of Jan Dorman’s theatre practice in the context of the classical tradition. It examines the archival collections of The Theatre Institute documenting the collaboration of Jan Dorman with Anna Świrszczyńska on the staging of O kulawym bogu Hefajstosie (“The Lame God Hephaestus”), Świrszczyńska’s radio play. The extant correspondence between the creators of the production and the director’s copies permit us to explore and analyse the ways in which classical antiquity inspired Dorman’s work. Although Dorman never adapted any ancient Greek text to the stage, his practice indicates a strong presence of the classical tradition, in particular the Greek comedy, in his mode of theatre.