Thanks so much for your comments. I agree — narration requires a writer of fine caliber to not come off bulky, heavy, and boring. In fact, that’s one of the challenges I truly enjoyed about moving to the audio medium… I find my writing can’t rely on narration and I’m forced to write imminent scenes.

At the same time, we face this challenge where we need to communicate information, and sometimes there’s stuff that the audience just needs to know that we don’t want to spend much time experiencing. And as in some of the examples we’ve pointed out above, the narrator can be a major contributer to the story as well.

Thanks again for your comments and would love to hear more of your thoughts.

Best,
Fred

I also heartily agree that audio theater is the bridge between TV and literature, and that if we dramatists make work of a fine enough caliber that truly is literary in nature, we’ll find a greater audience than we experience now. The biggest challenge is getting story to drive audio theater, not the medium (a challenge because we spend all this time feeling the medium is so unique that making the medium look transparent may not come easily). There’s always the issue of getting the work to the consumer, but that’s another discussion.

Anyways, thanks again for commenting and love to hear more of your thoughts!

- Fred

Secondly, I’ve started reading fiction again and having filled my head with movies, fiction is a wonderful experience again and it reminds me how empty films and TV can be. I think audio theater/radio drama can bridge the abyss between novel and TV using narration but PERHAPS it has to be done in a new way or we just need to work harder at the craft.

Good stuff! Hope folks keep this very interesting ball rolling!

(BUT – speaking of “assigning dialogue” – you put some of your words in my mouth, above!)

Best,
-Craig

The more I work in audio theater, the more my ears become aware of the sonic environment… Whether that’s the different textures of a setting, the odd sounds of everyday objects, or how quickly we chime in to an unfamiliar sound in an expected scene.

In the hands of a skilled designer (which I’m working on becoming!) there’s a whole other world in addition to that which is scripted and recorded, which adds the kind of depth that makes a recording worth listening to over and over.

Great drama will use the audio form to its best, and the audio form is at its best when there is a textured soundscape that is realized by those fully aware of its potential…

Those who when writing the script write “SFX: Click, Brief Fuxx, ANNOUNCER: (FILTERED) blah blah blah..” vs. “Hey Jane, let’s turn on the TV! — Okay, Ralph!” — and engineers and sound designers who can read INTO a scene when working on its soundscape, and make a world outside that which is printed come alive.

>…what is the role of narrator in audio theater?

For starters, that depends on whether the narrator is a character or not, and on whether it’s first-person or second/third person.

I know that much is obvious to all of us, but can’t help saying it — I majored in Tautology in college.

Also, the best answer depends on who your audience is.

> …the objective, birds-eye, “It was a dark and stormy night”
> narrator is a little heavy-handed, but I wonder if we’re being a
> little hard on a perfectly good literary device.

Better to say “…can be a little heavy-handed.” When third-person narration works for the listener, it works.

(Second-person narrative usually annoys me. It’s so in-your-face that it can very easily be off-putting, even offensive, unless it’s just perfect for the purpose and perfectly done.)

> …And it is staid to use the narrator in modern stories?

It is if you think it is. (Anybody ever adapt Pirandello for radio?)

Narration is very rare in movies and TV shows, where it’s considered always better to show the story than tell it. Same for most stage plays, with some notable exceptions. We’re used to that, and in those contexts a narrator usually does seem staid.

But.

Those who are already listeners today are well-used to narration, thanks to the popularity of audiobooks. So who’s your audience? People who are already listeners? Or are you looking to hook people who are primarily watchers?

We take you now to West Plains, Missouri…

The NATF workshop show this year incorporated a whole track of
narration, several short narratives performed solo by some excellent people. As you mentioned, neither of the two fully-audio-theatre plays in the show used a narrator at all. But the art of narration has become so important now that it’s earned a major place at the Workshop, which it has not had before.

How it’s done is the real question, for both the writing and the
reading. A really good narrator cannot save bad writing, and a poor narrator can really screw up good writing.

Meanwhile, in Owensboro, Kentucky…

“Albatross” was one of the screenplays David Ossman adapted for the Mystery Writers’ Festival performances last month. In this case, he used straight-ahead narration to very good effect, and needed it. This was a feature-length movie script, a political thriller/love story set in the Cold War era. In the audio adaptation, the narration set scenes and painted detailed mental pictures quickly, and kept the audience focused on the main story by simply reporting some events which were necessary for the plot-line but would have taken a lot of time and effort to stage
fully.

For this piece, omniscient narration was the only way David could
condense a long and complex story down to manageable length. Each
narration was fully underscored with music, which had two purposes: it told the audience when the focus stepped back from the action, and it tuned their emotions for the next scene. Nothing new about that, but it worked well because it was done well.

For “Luckiest Woman In The World,” another screenplay done in Kentucky, David used a narrator who was not telling the story but commenting on it. The narration here WAS in second-person, as the narrator always addresses the central character. The character is unaware of the narrator, but the audience overhears what is almost a soliloquy, interspersed. This made second-person narration NOT a direct, in-your-face experience for the audience. It worked wonderfully well, and my objections to second-person, mentioned above, went completely out the window.

First-person narration is something else again. Thanks for the kind words about “Goldfish!” Again, that’s David Ossman’s adaptation from the original Chandler short story; David is simply unsurpassed (at least!) at adapting stories for audio. For a Noir-flavored hard-boiled detective story, first-person narrative is so common it’s part of the art.

As you say, the narration:

> …guides us through the story and heaps so much of Marlowe’s
> character upon us that we might not get through just dialogue alone
> (at least, not with so much nuance).

Very good point. A character stays in character, whether playing or narrating. The listener not only accepts that but expects it.

Norman Corwin did a play called “The Moat Farm Murder” which was an adaptation of the actual confession of an English murderer. (Charles Laughton found the story in a newspaper, was so rivetted he went three stations past his stop on the Underground, sent it to Norman, and claimed the star part as his reward.)

So of course it’s an illustrated first-person narrative, and the
terrifying thing about hearing it is climbing into the mind of a
murderer, which happens mostly through the voiceover. Half a century later, this OTR production works as well as ever.

And Martin Gabel, narrating “On A Note Of Triumph,” simply grabs your brain and runs with it. THAT hasn’t dated, either.

As Henry mentioned, the narrative function can be accomplished in other ways, beyond just a single omniscient voice. How about some more examples along this line? Anybody?

All in all, narration is storytelling, perfectly valid and time-tested. It’s staid, heavy-handed, cheap, or bad technique only when it is used without a real need and a clear purpose, or just plain poorly done.

Returning to your original question, how’s this for a short answer:

“The role of the narrator in audio theatre is to say things which cannot be said as well, or at all, in any other way.”

Rich

Two Bits:

Since we’re rolling on this track, I’d like to bring up something I’ve been
pondering for some time — what is the role of narrator in audio theater?

It can be as many things there, as in can be on Stage (ANNE FRANK), in Film
(PHILIP MARLOWE), or especially, in Print (DOYLE, STOKER, and MOST EVERYONE
ELSE.)

As ever, it is the Skill with which a thing is used that counts, not the
Thing itself.

The question
arises on the basis of some comments here — “…trouble finding any new
work that really tries to push the edges of how a story can be told or
without relying on a narrator” and “We intentionally worked on not using a
narrator”

I understand the point raised (see below). But complaints in this direction
sometimes veer perilously close to being analagous to, “how can I make a good
film, without that annoying element of moving pictures?”

(Yes, I know about Direct Process, etc; I’ve done them! But they’ll never
yield you a GRAND ILLUSION or a GODFATHER.)

Now, I’d be the first to agree that the objective, birds-eye, “It was a dark
and stormy night” narrator is a little heavy-handed, but I wonder if we’re
being a little hard on a perfectly good literary device.

We are, yes.

Of course, your example of ham-fistedness is the downside referenced above.

Sometimes, you just need to speed the narrative along, give the audience some key
information, and keep moving without making everything happen moment-by-moment.

AND, be more Intimate with your partner, the listener.

Welles once said, “the camera is your enemy; the microphone, your friend.”
Nothing is stronger, in the Theater of the Mind, that one mind addressing the
other – directly.

(Example, Dickens in A CHRISTMAS CAROL:
“…Scrooge … found himself face to face with the unearthly visitor … as
close to it as I am now to you -
and I am standing in the spirit at your elbow …”
Try to beat that position, for artist-to-patron power; can’t be done.)

Obviously if you’re looking for “audio art” rather than “audio theater,” you
might prefer stuff that strays further from established traditions, in the
same ways that some prefer the avant-garde and experimental fiction.
However, I think that since this form already limits us to so few tools, we
shouldn’t shuck this one out unless there are some rather solid reasons to
do so.

Again, well said.

Ten minutes of a Cityscape done only in effects, or a tickle-the-senses
op-art cacaphony of “loose” sounds,
can be a blast. But it’s never going to bring Tears, Laughs, or Empathy the
way a great story well-told will.

Don’t be afraid of “old” methods; they are still in use, because they still
work – on a Human Animal that has basically not changed since hunters came
home to weave stories of their adventures in the field.