The Mercury Theater on the Air
The Mercury Theater on the Air (original name First Person Singular ) is a series of twenty-two radio programs with live radio dramas of Orson Welles that were aired in 1938 in the US broadcasting.
Facts
The weekly hour-long radio show featured classic literary works performed by Welles' famous company, the Mercury Theater . The leading roles were Orson Welles, William Alland , Edgar Barrier , Ray Collins , Joseph Cotten , George Coulouris , Arlene Francis , Alice Frost , Martin Gabel , Agnes Moorehead , Frank Readick , Elliott Reid , Everett Sloane , Howard Smith , Paul Stewart , Karl Swenson , Virginia Welles , Richard Wilson and Eustace Wyatt heard.
The radio broadcasts started on July 11, 1938 on the CBS radio network and were initially broadcast on Mondays at 9 p.m. local time. From September 11, 1938, the series could then be heard on Sundays at 8 p.m. local time. The Mercury Theater on the Air last broadcast on December 4, 1938. The series was replaced from December 9, 1938 by The Campbell Playhouse .
The opening melody of the radio broadcasts was the 1st Piano Concerto op. 23 in B flat minor by Pyotr Ilyich Tchaikovsky , the rest of the music was composed or arranged by Bernard Herrmann .
The radio plays were written by Orson Welles, John Houseman and Howard Koch and directed by Orson Welles and Paul Stewart. The programs were produced by John Houseman, Orson Welles and Paul Stewart.
The episode " The War of the Worlds " from October 30, 1938 became one of the most famous programs in radio history due to the mass panic it inadvertently triggered. After the headlines on the front pages of the newspapers that had received the program, Campbell Soup became a sponsor of the radio play series .
history
After the theatrical success of the Mercury Theater in 1937, the CBS Radio invited Orson Welles to create a thirteen-week radio play series in the 1938 summer program. The series started on July 11, 1938 initially under the title First Person Singular , a title that was intended to express that Orson Welles would play the leading role in every episode of the radio plays. A few months later, the radio play series was then renamed The Mercury Theater on the Air .
Paul Holler describes the beginnings of the radio broadcast in Critique magazine as follows:
“Radio, with its ability to stimulate the imagination and even involve the audience in the creative process, has great potential as a medium for real drama. It seemed inevitable that the day would come when the medium that Orson Welles had popularized across the country would become part of his broader theatrical ambitions. That time came in 1938.
That year, CBS, remembering its adaptation of Les Misérables the year before, reached out to Welles and Houseman about a series of radio plays for their summer schedule. The idea was a series of stories called "First Person Singular". However, the series would be remembered under its second name The Mercury Theater on the Air .
As in the previous year with Les Misérables , CBS gave Welles a completely free hand in the artistic design of the new series. The choices he made when developing the series were shaped by what he had learned in other radio plays in recent years. The first priority was to develop radio plays specifically for radio and not simply to adapt plays from the Mercury Theater production for radio. Welles wrote, directed and starred in his productions in close collaboration with John Houseman and other writers. The end result was a series of plays based on literary rather than dramatic works. There were exceptions, most notably Our Little Town from Welles' former mentor Thornton Wilder . But it was clear to Welles and Houseman that the radio medium was much better at telling a story than its dramatization. For this reason, some of the Mercury Theater on the Air's most notable productions have been adaptations of great novels: The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn , A Tale of Two Cities , Heart of Darkness, and other major literary works were brought to radio audiences during the Mercury Theater on the Air series presents."
When it came to sound effects, Orson Welles had a particular challenge for the CBS sound effects team, The New Yorker reported . "His broadcasts called for all sorts of unheard effects, and he was satisfied with nothing short of perfection." For the first episode, "Dracula," the sound team searched for the perfect sound of a stake propelled through the vampire's heart. They first presented, for Welles's approval, a savoy cabbage and a sharpened broomstick. "Much too flaky," said Welles. “Drill a hole in the cabbage and fill it with water. We need blood. ”When Welles wasn't satisfied with the sound experiment either, he thought for a while and asked for a watermelon. The New Yorker recapitulates the result: “Welles stepped out of the control booth, picked up a hammer and slapped the bowler hat. Even the studio audience shuddered at the sound. That night he made nightmares to millions of listeners across the country about what, although made with a bowler hat and hammer, was undoubtedly the sound made by a stake piercing the heart of an undead body. "
When the Mercury Theater's second season began in 1938, Orson Welles and John Houseman could no longer write the " Mercury Theater on the Air " programs themselves. For "Hell on Ice" (October 9, 1938), the 14th episode of the series, they hired Howard E. Koch , whose experience with a play by the Federal Theater Project in Chicago had led him to leave his law firm and go to Moving to New York to become a writer. Instead of a decent salary, Koch received the rights to every script he worked on from Houseman - fortunately for him, "The War of the Worlds" as well. After only five months, Koch left the radio drama series for an engagement in Hollywood. His last script was "The Glass Key" (March 10, 1939), which was already written for the follow-up series The Campbell Playhouse .
Episodes
| # | date | program |
|---|---|---|
| 1 | July 11, 1938 | " Dracula " by Bram Stoker
Cast: Orson Welles (as Dr. John Seward, Count Dracula), Elizabeth Fuller (as Lucy Westenra). George Coulouris (as Jonathan Harker), Agnes Moorehead (as Mina Harker), Martin Gabel (as Dr. Van Helsing), Ray Collins (as Russian captain), Karl Swenson (as helmsman) |
| 2 | July 18, 1938 | " Treasure Island " by Robert Louis Stevenson
Cast: Orson Welles (as an adult Jim Hawkins, Long John Silver ), Arthur Anderson (as Jim Hawkins), George Coulouris (as Captain Smollett), Ray Collins (as Ben Gunn), Agnes Moorehead (as Mrs. Hawkins), Eustace Wyatt (as Squire Trelawney), Alfred Shirley (as Blind Pew); and William Alland , Stephen Fox, Richard Wilson |
| 3 | July 25, 1938 | " A Tale of Two Cities " by Charles Dickens Cast: Orson Welles (as Dr. Alexandre Manette, Sydney Carton), Mary Taylor (as Lucie Manette), Eustace Wyatt (as an employee), Edgar Barrier (as Charles Darnay), Martin Gabel (as Jarvis Lorry), Frank Readick (as Ernest Defarge), Betty Garde (as Madame Defarge), Erskine Sanford (as President), Ray Collins (as prosecutor), Kenneth Delmar (as defense attorney) |
| 4th |
|
" The Thirty-Nine Steps" by John Buchan Cast: Orson Welles (as Richard Hannay, Marmaduke Jopley) |
| 5 | August 8, 1938 | Three short stories : "My Little Boy" by Carl Ewald, "The Open Window" by Saki and "I'm a Fool" by Sherwood Anderson Cast: Orson Welles, Edgar Barrier, Ray Collins and others |
| 6th | August 15, 1938 | "Abraham Lincoln" by John Drinkwater
Cast: Orson Welles, Ray Collins, George Coulouris, Karl Swenson |
| 7th | August 22, 1938 | "The Affairs of Anatol " by Arthur Schnitzler Cast: Orson Welles, Alice Frost, Arlene Francis, Helen Lewis, Ray Collins |
| 8th | August 29, 1938 | " The Count of Monte Christo " by Alexandre Dumas Cast: Orson Welles (as Edmond Dantès), Ray Collins (as Abbé Faria), George Coulouris (as Monsieur Morrel), Edgar Barrier (as de Villefort), Eustace Wyatt (as Caderousse) , Paul Stewart (as Paul Dantés) Sidney Smith (as Mondego), Richard Wilson (as officer), Virginia Welles, as Anna Stafford (Mercédès), William Alland (as merchant) |
| 9 | September 5, 1938 | " The Man Who Was Thursday " by GK Chesterton Cast: Orson Welles (as Gabriel Syme), Eustace Wyatt (as President Sunday), Ray Collins (as the Professor), George Coulouis (as Lucian Gregory), Edgar Barrier (the Marquis) , Paul Stewart (as Gogol), Joseph Cotten (as Dr. Bull), Erskine Sanford (as Secretary), Alan Devitt (as Witherspoon), Virginia Welles, as Anna Stafford (Rosamond) |
| 10 | September 11, 1938 | " Julius Caesar " by William Shakespeare Cast: Orson Welles (as Brutus), HV Kaltenborn (as commentator), Martin Gabel (as Cassius), George Coulouris (as Antony), Joseph Holland (as Caesar) |
| 11 | September 18, 1938 | " Jane Eyre " by Charlotte Brontë |
| 12 | September 25, 1938 | " Sherlock Holmes " by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle and William Gillette Cast: Orson Welles (as Sherlock Holmes), Ray Collins (as Dr. Watson), Mary Taylor (as Alice Faulkner), Brenda Forbes (as Madge Larrabee), Edgar Barrier ( as James Larrabee), Morgan Farley (as Inspector Forman), Richard Wilson (as Jim Craigin), Eustace Wyatt (as Professor Moriarty) |
| 13 | October 2, 1938 | " Oliver Twist " by Charles Dickens Cast: Orson Welles (as Fagin) and others |
| 14th | October 9, 1938 | " Hell on Ice " by Edward Ellsberg Cast: Orson Welles, Al Swenson, Bud Collyer, Dan Seymour (narrator), Frank Readick, Howard Smith , Joseph Cotten, Ray Collins, Thelma Schnee , William Alland, Bernard Herrmann (composer, conductor) , Davidson Taylor (Production Manager) |
| 15th | October 16, 1938 | " Seventeen (Roman) " by Booth Tarkington Cast: Orson Welles (as William Sylvanus Baxter), Betty Garde (as Ms. Baxter), Ray Collins (as Mr. Parcher), Mary Wickes (as Ms. Parcher), Joseph Cotten (as Genesis) , Ruth Ford (as Lola Pratt), Marilyn Erskine (as Jane), Elliott Reid (as cousin George), Pattee Chapmen (as Rannie), Morgan Farley (as Joe Bullitt) |
| 16 | October 23, 1938 | " Journey around the earth in 80 days " by Jules Verne Cast: Orson Welles (as Phineas Fogg), Ray Collins (as Mr. Fix), Edgar Barrier (as Passepartout), Eustace Wyatt (as Ralph), Frank Readick (as Stuart) , Arlene Francis (as Princess Aouda), Stefan Schnabel (as Parsee), Al Swenson (as the captain), William Alland (as the officer) |
| 17th | October 30, 1938 | " The War of the Worlds (radio play) " by HG Wells Cast: Orson Welles (producer, director, presenter and in the role of Professor Richard Pierson), Dan Seymour (speaker), Paul Stewart (co-producer and in the role of studio announcer and of the third studio announcer), Frank Readick (as reporter Carl Phillips and radio operator 2X2L), Kenny Delmar (as police officer on the farm, Captain Lansing, interior minister and radio operator from Bayonne), Ray Collins (as farmer Wilmuth, Harry McDonald and radio announcer), Carl Frank (as the second studio announcer and fascist stranger), Richard Wilson (as Brigadier General Montgomery Smith, Officer of the 22nd Field Artillery and Langham Field), William Alland (as space spokesman and field artillery shooter), Stefan Schnabel (as field artillery observer), William Herz (as Newark radio operator and radio operator 8X3R), Howard Smith (as Bomber Lt. Voght), Bernard Herrmann (composer and conductor), John Houseman (producer and screenwriter), Howard Koch (adapter), Davidson Taylor (produc manager), Ora Nichols (sound effects), Ray Kremer (sound effects), Jim Rogan (sound effects), John Dietz (sound engineer) |
| 18th | November 6, 1938 | " Heart of Darkness " by Joseph Conrad Cast: Orson Welles (as author and Ernest Kurtz), Ray Collins (as Marlow), Alfred Shirley (as accountant), George Coulouris (as deputy manager), Edgar Barrier (as second manager), William Alland (as agent), Virginia Welles, as Anna Stafford (Kurtz's future bride), Frank Readick (as Tchiatosov) "Life With Father" by Clarence Day Cast: Orson Welles (as father), Mildred Natwick (as mother), Mary Wickes (as employment agency), Alice Frost (as Margaret), Arthur Anderson (as young Clarence Day) |
| 19th | November 13, 1938 | " A Passenger to Bali " by Ellis St. Joseph Cast: Orson Welles (as Reverend Dr. Ralph Wilkes), Everett Sloane, Stefan Schnabel, Guy Spaull |
| 20th | November 20, 1938 | Charles Dickens's " The Pickwickiers " cast: Orson Welles (as Sergeant Buzzfuzz and Mr. Jingle), Ray Collins (as Samuel Pickwick), Alfred Shirley (as Augustus Snodgrass), Frank Readick, Elliott Reid, Edgar Barrier, Eustace Wyatt, Brenda Forbes and other |
| 21st | November 27, 1938 | Booth Tarkington's Clarence cast: Orson Welles (as Clarence) and others |
| 22nd | 4th December 1938 | " The Bridge of San Luis Rey " by Thornton Wilder |
Awards
The radio show The Mercury Theater on the Air was inducted into the National Radio Hall of Fame in 1988.
See also
literature
- Orson Welles, Peter Bogdanovich, Jonathan Rosenbaum, This is Orson Welles, HarperCollinsPublishers, New York 1992 ISBN 0-06-016616-9 .
- John Dunning, On the Air: The Encyclopedia of Old-Time Radio, Oxford University Press, Inc., New York 1998 ISBN 978-0-19-507678-3 .
- John Houseman, Run Through: A Memoir, Simon & Schuster, New York 1972 ISBN 0-671-21034-3 .
- Richard France, The Theater of Orson Welles . Lewisburg, Bucknell University Press, Pennsylvania 1977 ISBN 0-8387-1972-4 .
- Frank Brady, Citizen Welles, Charles Scribner's Sons, New York 1989 ISBN 0-684-18982-8 .
Web links
- The Mercury Theater on the Air at www.mercurytheartre.info
- The Mercury Theater on the Air at www.bornalone.org
Individual evidence
- ^ John Dunning: On the Air: The Encyclopedia of Old-Time Radio . Oxford University Press, Inc., New York 1998.
- ↑ a b c d e f g h i j k l m n o p q r s t u v w Orson Welles, Peter Bogdanovich, Jonathan Rosenbaum: This is Orson Welles . HarperCollins Publishers, New York 1992, ISBN 0-06-016616-9 .
- ↑ According to the document created by Herrmann, which lists all of his compositions, "Dracula" is the only radio broadcast for which he has composed new music (the document can now be found in the Bernhard Herrmann documents of the University of California-Santa Barbara)
- ↑ An Interview with John Houseman, Orson Welles on the Air: The Radio Years. New York: The Museum of Broadcasting, Exhibition Catalog, Oct 28 - Dec 3, 1988, p.12
- ↑ ORSON WELLES, THE NEW DEAL, AND THE MERCURY THEATER ON THE AIR. Retrieved on January 2, 2018 (English): "Radio, with its power to excite the imagination and actually involve the audience in the creative process, had huge potential as a medium for serious drama. It seemed inevitable that the day would come when this medium, which had made Orson Welles a household name across the country, would become a part of his serious theater ambitions. That day came in 1938. It was in that year that CBS, remembering Welles' work on Les Miserables the year before, approached him and Housemann about a series of radio dramas for its summer schedule. The idea was conceived as a series of narratives under the title First Person Singular. But the series would be best remembered by the name it assumed with its second production, The Mercury Theater on the Air. As with Les Miserables the previous year, Welles was given complete creative control by CBS over the new series. (19) The choices he made in developing the series were informed by what he had learned in previous years in other radio dramas. Chief among those choices were to create dramas specifically for the radio and not to simply adapt dramas in production at the Mercury Theater for broadcast. In close collaboration with John Houseman and other writers, Welles wrote, directed and performed in the productions. The end result was a series of dramas based on literary, rather than dramatic, works. There were exceptions, most notably Our Town by Welles' early mentor Thorton Wilder. But it was clear to Welles and Housemann that the medium of radio suited the telling of a story far better than the dramatization of it. As a result, some of the most memorable Mercury Theater on the Air productions were adaptations of great novels. Huckleberry Finn, A Tale of Two Cities, The Magnificent Ambersons, Heart of Darkness and other major literary works were offered to radio audiences during the Mercury Theater on the Air's run. "
- ↑ a b c Lucille Fletcher: Squeaks, Slams, Echoes, and Shots . The New Yorker, April 13, 1940, pp. 85-86 .
- ↑ John Houseman: Run Through: A Memoir . Simon & Schuster, New York.
- ^ Richard France: The Theater of Orson Welles . Bucknell University Press, Lewisburg, Pennsylvania 1977.
- ↑ a b c d e f g h i j k Orson Welles on the Air: The Radio Years. New York: The Museum of Broadcasting, exhibition catalog, October 28 - December 3, 1988, pp. 50–52
- ^ A b Frank Brady: Citizen Welles . Charles Scribner's Sons, New York 1989.
- ↑ a b The Mercury Theater. Retrieved January 2, 2018 .
- ^ Celebrating the 70th Anniversary of Orson Welles's panic radio broadcast THE WAR OF THE WORLDS. Retrieved January 2, 2018 .
- ^ Radio Hall of Fame. Retrieved January 2, 2018 .