Copyright by Richard James Gray II 2006
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Copyright by Richard James Gray II 2006 The Dissertation Committee for Richard James Gray II Certifies that this is the approved version of the following dissertation: FRENCH RADIO DRAMA FROM THE INTERWAR TO THE POSTWAR PERIOD (1922-1973) Committee: Seth Wolitz, Supervisor Mary J. Baker Jean-Pierre Cauvin Alexandra Wettlaufer Michael Kackman FRENCH RADIO DRAMA FROM THE INTERWAR TO THE POSTWAR PERIOD (1922-1973) by Richard James Gray II, B.A.; M.A. Dissertation Presented to the Faculty of the Graduate School of The University of Texas at Austin in Partial Fulfillment of the Requirements for the Degree of Doctor of Philosophy The University of Texas at Austin May 2006 Dedication To those whom I have lost. May you continue to live in my memory: Grandma and Grandpa Gray, Great Grandma Green, Grandma and Grandpa Knabusch. Acknowledgements I would like to extend my most heartfelt thanks to the members of my committee whose input was instrumental in the writing of this dissertation. I am especially indebted to Dr. Seth Wolitz, who encouraged me to choose a fresh, challenging subject of research, and who motivated me to reach the end. Without his support and his continued assurance, I may have never realized this study. I would also like to express my gratitude to the members of my family who have supported me in this endeavor. I would like to thank my parents, who have provided constant encouragement throughout my life and who gave to me the gift of a university education. To my sister, without whom I never would have been known as “Chauntel’s little brother.” Also, to my mother-in-law and father-in-law, who have helped my family in immeasurable ways. Finally, I will never find the words to express the thankfulness that I feel toward my wife, Andrea, and to my daughters, Geneviève, Madeleine and Catherine. I have always appreciated your patience and understanding. You have been my true source of inspiration. Together we went on a journey that at times seemed never-ending. This journey is now over. I am proud of where our travels have taken us, but I will always strive to remember our families’ humble roots. v French Radio Drama from the Interwar to the Post-War Period (1922- 1973) Publication No._____________ Richard James Gray II, Ph.D. The University of Texas at Austin, 2006 Supervisor: Seth Wolitz Radio drama, as a whole, is one of the most underappreciated popular literary forms of the past nine decades. With the advent of the radio, literary expression in the form of radio drama soon found another medium through which it might both entertain, educate, and propagandize. In France, in particular, the uses of radio drama continued to develop in conjunction with the evolution of radio in the periods before, during, and after World War II. This dissertation serves to provide a better understanding of the role of radio drama within French society from 1922-1973. It serves to highlight the emergence of French radio drama and to underscore its uniqueness. It seeks to interpret the intention and the progression of the medium beginning with the pre-World War II period and ending with the radio dramas of the mid-1970s. In addition, this study will show how theater profited from the arrival of radio. It seeks to define the literary history of radio drama during this period. Finally, this work aims to demonstrate how French radio drama of the Interwar to the Postwar period reflected the social and political realities of vi an ever-changing France. Radio itself became a place of political and cultural opposition. But radio also became an instrument through which the listener could communicate aurally with his environment. This new means of communication served foreign policy, propaganda, cultural and religious objectives that no one could have imagined. The Introduction will situate the advent of radio drama within its proper context and offer an overview of Western radio drama during the period under investigation. Chapter One serves to outline the medium and genre that one calls radio drama, a form of popular literature. It will present in detail the aesthetics of the radio drama and the various typologies that existed throughout the period before, during, and after the German Occupation. In my dissertation, I will make use of both representative radio dramas as well as exemplary ones in order to illustrate the dual capabilities of the genre. Chapter Two serves to highlight French radio dramas that emerged before German Occupation. It will examine representative dramas in detail by looking at radio drama as entertainment, propaganda and a reflection of the contemporary reality. The purpose of Chapter Three is to show the form and function of representative radio dramas that appeared during the period of German occupation. Chapter Four serves to analyze the evolution of French radio drama during the Postwar period. The chapter will examine the new frontiers of radio drama that were beginning to be explored after Liberation. The Conclusion presents an accounting of the results of this dissertation as well as presentation of new perspectives on the future of French radio drama in the Information Age. vii Table of Contents Introduction..............................................................................................................1 Chapter One: From Radio Emerges Radio Drama ...............................................18 Chapter Two: French Radio Drama of the Interwar Period..................................48 Chapter Three: French Radio Drama of the World-War II Period .....................101 Chapter Four: French Radio Drama of the Post-War Period...............................160 Conclusion ...........................................................................................................217 Appendix 1...........................................................................................................226 Appendix 2...........................................................................................................230 Appendix 3...........................................................................................................232 Appendix 4...........................................................................................................234 Appendix 5...........................................................................................................235 Appendix 6...........................................................................................................236 Bibliography ........................................................................................................237 Vita .….................................................................................................................249 viii Introduction Radio drama appealed to some of the key dramatists of the twentieth century: Harold Pinter, Tom Stoppard, Arthur Miller, Samuel Beckett, Bertolt Brecht, and Peter Handke. Beginning in the 1920s, the playwrights of the period trained in traditional forms of theater discovered that radio drama offered a new creative medium. During the last century, a vast repertoire of thousands of radio dramas has only recently been discovered. I will show how radio drama became an important genre within French popular literature and culture. Radio drama owes its very existence to the introduction of radio technology. The advent of radio in the 1920s revolutionized mass communications as a whole. It provided another means to disseminate news, music, and inevitably, literature. Countries in Europe and North America, in particular, no longer relied exclusively upon the written press for news and information. To hear both classical and popular music, citizens were no longer obliged to attend concerts and operas. As a result of the coming of radio, listeners heard literary works read and performed for the first time in their own homes. In 1938, the critic Marc Berger remarked that theater on television would never be 1 anything more than “une réussite du théâtre et du cinéma.” This criticism did not apply to radio drama, for he declared that radio drama “basé sur la perception auditive et la suggestion est bel et bien un huitième art (13).” Berger made this statement in allusion to the film medium, which the French had quickly labeled the seventh art. 1 For more on Marc Berger’s evaluation of radio drama, see the journal Marianne (August 17, 1938): 13. 1 Some scholars of French literature perceive radio drama as a well that never filled 2 with water. Researchers that explore the field seldom venture further back in time than the appearance of the radio dramas of Samuel Beckett of the 1950s and 1960s. Academics recognize Antonin Artaud’s Pour en finir avec le Jugement de Dieu, principally because the controversial subject matter caused such a stir in 1948. Modern scholarship in French radio drama leaves a gap of more than twenty-five years from the birth of French radio drama to Artaud’s controversial work. With the exception of the German Hörspiel, which enjoys a long tradition and has been studied extensively since its appearance in the early 1920s, few academics outside of England and Germany have explored radio drama. The few substantial book-length works on French radio drama that exist are dated and limited thematically by their authors. Among these works is Théâtre radiophonique: mode nouveau d’expression artistique (1926), published by the playwrights Pierre Cusy and Gabriel Germinet. Théâtre radiophonique combines contemporary scripts, including the well-known radio