Theaters are a very nice form of art. It portrays people and it is performed by people, to people. It is usually permanent in our memories since it feeds more than one sense. But it is a whole other enjoyment to use your imagination to realize a play in your head, without a stage, actors - actresses and gestures. In this post, i will briefly talk about radio theater (radio drama) concept and give couple of examples.
The concept of communication is usually based on 3 of our senses. Visual, auditory or written communication. A person can be more effective on one of these and less effective in the others. If you ask me, i would say the most memorable one is the visual and then the auditory and the written communication. This also helps people to learn new things by visualizing or storytelling. The purpose of this is activating the brain more and forcing it to imagine. That is why a theater or a concert of a movie can be more permanent in our brains.
Normally a theater plays in front of your eyes from a pre-written script almost as close as you can touch it. Here, the things you hear accompany what you are seeing on the stage. This is why gestures, emphasizes and toning play a vital role here. These are pretty much known by anyone who has a little bit of knowledge about this art.
But when you talk about radio dramas, whole structure changes drastically. You remove on of the senses from the art which has been established on 2 of our input senses. There is a play that you have to watch without seeing. No stage, facial expressions, costumes... At this point you need a whole new area of skills and extra effects and imagination for immersion. The listener (you) basically complete the visual part of the art.
If you want to produce a very good radio drama, you have to gain expertise in voice overs. Thinks about 2 people talking to each other. Even this is a simple example, there are dozens of variations like where do they speak, what is there in the environment they speak, what do they feel, maybe one of them is walking on the other one or calling from away ...etc. These has to be voiced properly. You also need to add special effects on top of this, since it is not just a script voice-over. Maybe a door opening or closing or grinding. Or people walking in the street or waves at the beach or a sound of traffic nearby. Even more, you might have to adjust the echo of footsteps to express the environment, maybe it is a big hall or a small room. These are some of the problems that you have to overcome when producing a radio drama and they are crucial for immersion.
But it is you who have to add the visual layer on top of all this auditory input. This is why the activating the brain part sounds really interesting to me. The same play and voice-over and effects will turn into different scenes in different people's minds. Of course you can have this kind of enjoyment while you read a novel from a very food author. But think of it this way: You can't change a single word of a novel. Events and scenes will be realized in your brain exactly as they are described. Also, when you go to see a play in a theater, it is already determined how the stage will be decorated and costumes and lights and performance of the actors and actresses are already decided. You can't change these as you wish. But when you let the visualization be presented by your imagination, you can draw the house, the garden, the car or the people however you would like. You basically let the play, play in your head.
I can write about the importance and the meaning of this under the idea and philosophy category if i believe i have enough knowledge about and analysis about it. But let me tell you this much. I think the processes that limitates the imagination with heavy perceptional input while expecting a certain output are murderers of a brain. Anyways, of course every branch of art has its own meaning and depth and taste. But all these branches must have some new perspectives or approaches so that it enriches. I usually remember the characters and decorations in my head when i listen to a radio drama pretty vividly. These are usually scratched strongly into our brains since they are also products of our brains.
Long story short, if we want to talk about imagination and creativity, this post would go to infinity :) Let me reference a hilarious example from wikipedia about radio dramas. Back when the first years of the radio dramas being popular, the book named "The war of the worlds" from H. G. Wells is presented on radios and it caused panic among the people. Because it was presented as new in the play and people have thought it was actual news and aliens are coming to invade the world :) When you remove the visual perception, the whole meaning can change drastically.
I have radio dramas in Turkish language in out national TRT website and on youtube. But unfortunately, i don't have a quality source of these in English or other languages, since i am not an art writer. But if you search about radio dramas on youtube and spotify, there are some options i can see. For Turkish examples:
Radyo Tiyatrosu channel youtube link.
Nostalji Sokağı channel youtube link.
Sesli Kitap Sokağı channel youtube link.
TRT Radio: Radio theaters under TRT.
And if you want to support, you can visit this page to reach "Radyo Tiyatrosu" Web Site.
Also a couple of my favorites in Turkish. Huzur apartmanı is here, Mutlu Son is here and Şenlikli Düğün is here on youtube.
I think the radio dramas are ideal if you are washing the dishes or cleaning the house or working on computer. I would not recommend listening these while driving or working with sharp objects or working on a profession that requires attention though. If you support it and let other hear about it, this form of art can live on as a tradition. As long as people write and voice it and you support it to keep it alive, i am sure you can be invited into vast variety of lives with your imagination. Especially in these pandemic times. See you at the next post :)
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