The Cbc Radio Drama Project and Its Background

THE CBC RADIO DRAMA PROJECT AND ITS BACKGROUND by Howard Fink Radio drama for me, as for many people who were growing up just after the War, was, quite simply, my introduction to theatre: the classics, Renaissance drama, and modern and contemporary plays, including European and Canadian. It is rare that one gets the opportunity to re-examine a major formative influence later in one's life, rarer still to find that in this objective light its value holds up. I have had that happy experience with CBC radio drama. I have also had an experience of a completely different kind, in attempting to trace the materials of this influential phenomenon: one which, as regards the history of Canadian theatre in general, has been shared in some measure by many: it was almost impossible to study the achievement of CBC radio drama as a whole, or even at first to locate the vast majority of the plays created and produced. Of course this is partly owing to the particular nature of theatre, the original form of which, unlike a novel or a book of verse, is a live performance, which remains rather in the memories than in the bookcases of its audience. More particularly, the CBC has always considered itself a production organization rather than a repository of culture, and quite rightly so. It has, in fact, been discouraged from archival activities by the government, which considers the Public Archives of Canada as a more appropriate institution for that role. 3f course such well-known figures as Robertson Davies, George Ryga and James Reaney are well represented in print. But of the estimated seven thousand original scripts produced by the CBC in the first fifteen years of its history, the most influential period, only just over a hundred were published, and many of these are now out of print. I should like to comment further on this a little later. First, however, I would like to attempt to describe in some detail the history of CBC radio drama, and to make some comments on its nature, and on its influence on Canadian theatre in general. Finally, I'll describe the progress of my present project, and add some information about the state of CBC archives. If one tries to define it, radio drama seems to be either a tributary of traditional theatre, or an eccentric offshoot of radio documentary; its place and role are relatively obscure. This is especially true if considered from the per- spective of the 19701s, when radio has been replaced by television as the medium of popular entertainment. Neil Compton in 1968 was already calling CBC radio "a kind of middle-brow Canadian magazine", catering to minority intellectual tastes. And in particular radio drama, "once our pride and joy", as Myron Galloway has termed it, has shrunk to a kind of impressive if eccentric and relatively unpublicized dramatic phenomenon, from the gargantuan entertainment feast of the past. Even if one thinks back to the 1940's and early 19501s, when the drama series CBC Stage and -CBC Wednesday Night plays were the major entertainment of the thousands of Canadians who now watch All in the Family , the relations between radio drama and the legitimate stage were often vague in the minds of many, even those whose job it was to review radio plays. In one sense, radio drama was a poor cousin of live stage, importing the techniques of the theatre for use within the stringent limitations of a purely aural medium. Esse TJ. Ljungh must have been only the best-known of those Canadian director-producers who came to radio from the stage - he got his drama training in Sweden. In the U.S. the most impressive figure of this kind was, of course, Orson Welles, whose famous Mercury Theatre staged their plays first before a live theatre audience, then put them on the air. The methods of Andrew Allan, among others, owed something to Welles' techniques. Esse Ljungh himself had sets constructed in his studios, and had his actors memorize their lines, before holding proper rehearsals. Upon investigation, however, this first impression of radio drama as a limited offshoot of legitimate theatre is proven wrong; to begin with, there was, effectively, no live professional theatre in Canada in the 'thirties', when the CBC Drama Department was born. A major factor was cultural; Neil Compton talks about it in his essay, "Broadcasting and Canadian Culture": The new media have often been accused of battening parasitically upon the creative energy of real art, vulgarizing its themes, and seducing its practitioners with fame and money. This may be so in societies with a deeply-rooted traditional culture but it has not been so in Canada. With its small, dispersed population and puritan, philistine outlook, English Canada in particular had virtually no serious professional tradition of music or theatre at the time that the C.B.C. was established. In other words CBC drama wasn't a tributary of legitimate theatre, because the Canadian culture hadn't thrown up any such institution. Arthur Phelps had been aware of this problem very early on, and realized soon after the creation of the CBC, that far from stealing from "live theatre", the CBC itself might provide a solution to the cultural problem, by creating an autonomous dramatic institution and tradition in Canada. Professor Phelps in a 1938 essay on Canadian drama expresses it in familiar terms: We have as yet no drama fit to demand and find an inevitable audience ...; we are still psychologically on the one hand a colony ... and on the other a parasitic appendage to the U.S.A.... I believe Radio Drama will develop its own subject matter and theme ... I think our Canadian public is offering increasingly sensitive and sympathetic audiences for dramatic expression that is worthy. I believe that National Radio is going to contribute more and more to this end. There was in addition, and in a sense more crucially, a financial problem as well. The fact is that it was in practical terms because of a lack of money that there was hardly any professional theatre in the late 'thirties. The Dominion Drama Festival, while central to Canadian theatre activities, dealt with amateur organi- zations without any real financial backing. The lack of professional theatre meant no regular market for scripts, and so, no professional dramatists in Canada. It is clear then that the CBC was simply the major and almost the only outlet for professional actors, playwrights and musicians in the late 'thirties and the 'forties, because it had a budget, an organization and facilities, and an audience of growing sophistication. Because of this combination of circumstances good professional theatre, traditional and contemporary, was in some measure the gift of CBC Drama to this country. W.S. Milne, who wrote the Drama reviews for the University of Toronto Quarterly 'Letters in canadallin the 'thirties, recognized the circumstances as early as 1937 - and their effects: As to quality ... much of the best dramatic writing has been done for the radio, a fact which seems curious but is explicable when one remembers that there is a ccmmercial market for radio scripts. The War played its part in events. As the struggle became more serious, and more and more of the country's manpower and resources were turned to the 'war effort', the amateur groups folded, and even the Dominion Drama Festival was no longer active by 1940. On the other hand, radio in general came into its own during the War (and not in Canada alone, one recalls), as the primary medium for propaganda, news and entertainment. Radio drama shared the spotlight; on some levels, especially on war themes of various kinds, the function of entertainment blended with those of news and propaganda, and CBC has always been strong on documentary techniques. What this meant was that, alone among the outlets for drama during the War, radio, having this essential function, was assured of finances and personnel, as well as an audience. It was therefore a forcing-house for all the new young dramatic talents, including the playwrights, who had the opportunity to experiment and mature in the radio medium; the quality of the scripts (according to 'Letters in Canada'jwas improving all the time. When Andrew Allan returned to Toronto in 1943 to head the CBC Drama Department and to create the Stage series, all the elements were present for the kind of achievement which forces us to recognize radio drama as a unique form in its own right, and an original contribution to our culture. This achievement matured in the post-war years. Despite the fact that after the war the normal activities of the traditional theatre resumed, there remained the previous problems: often amateur status and a lack of funds. Meanwhile, radio drama was calling on all the major Canadian dramatic talents, and its production was increasing at such a rate thatl'letters in ~anadal'des~airedof doing any more than sampling the new radio scripts. Vincent Tovell, who took over from Milne as Drama reviewer fort1letters in canadallin 1946, made it clear in his first article that he considered CBC radio drama to be the active centre of all Canadian dramatic activities, and that it was creating impressive achievements of international standard: For perfectly obvious reasons it is to the radio producers that most Canadian dramatists turn for recognition and opportunities. Through that medium they find a responsive nationa1,even international audience. In che field of radio drama Canadian directors, actors, musicians and writers have earned international honours, and the CBC's annual series ..

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