In another era, it was as natural as watching the prime-time sitcoms is today: Whole families would gather around the radio, and through the magic of sound, would let themselves be transported to another world.
But that was then – before television, multimedia and information overload. Could radio theater still captivate modern audiences?
Curt Columbus, artistic director of the Trinity Repertory Company, is convinced that it can. This month, he and a group of Trinity actors are hitting the airwaves with “Trinity Rep Radio Theater,” a new program on WRNI, 1290 AM, Rhode Island’s NPR news station.
The hour-long show, which premiered Oct. 6, can be streamed live or downloaded as a Podcast. Hosted by Bob Seay – better known as WRNI’s host on “Morning Edition” – it will air monthly, featuring performances by Trinity artists and conversations with them.
“I’ve always been a fan of the radio as a medium for communicating really directly to people – maybe it’s because it puts the story in our heads and makes us imagine it, the way that theater does,” Columbus said. Growing up, he added, he loved to listen to the great British stage actors on records and on the radio.
“We have this enormous resource here, the Trinity Rep acting company,” he said. “They’re right in our midst. Why wouldn’t we put them on the radio the way you would John Gielgud?”
The first episode takes its cue from Trinity’s production of “Cherry Orchard,” by Anton Chekhov.
Company members Fred Sullivan Jr., Janice Duclos and Phyllis Kay offer dramatic readings from four Chekov short stories – “The Huntsman,” “The Woman without Prejudice,” “A Drama” and “The Little Trick” – that have been adapted for performance by Columbus.
In addition, Columbus, who is as well-known for his translations of the Russian masters as he is in theater, discusses Chekov’s writing style and the themes he develops – and the actors add their own perspectives.
The result is an intimate performance and a conversation that makes not only Chekhov, but Trinity itself, more accessible – as when Sullivan and Kay, who play the leads in “Cherry Orchard,” speak about their experience with that production.
“The joy of my life is that I get to work on the greatest writers in history with a company of actors that I’ve worked with for 20 years,” Sullivan tells Seay.
“Phyllis and I in ‘Cherry Orchard’ have a goodbye scene,” Sullivan adds, “and not only do you see the two characters on stage saying goodbye to each other, but all the characters we’ve ever played: We’ve played husband and wife in ‘Angels in America,’ and girlfriend and boyfriend in ‘The Beauty Queen of Leenane,’ and a million ‘Christmas Carols,’ and a million comedies. … So we just bring our shared experience and our love for working together to this incredibly beautiful, breathtaking, moving – and funny, charming scene.”
“And it resonates in a particular way for the two of us,” Kay adds, “in a way that it might not resonate for two actors who just met each other two weeks ago.”
Future programs will include readings from the work of Charles Dickens, in November, to coincide with the theater’s 30th anniversary production of “A Christmas Carol,” and work by Irish playwrights and poets in December, to complement Trinity’s production of “Dublin Carol,” by Conor McPherson.
Columbus said the material will be tied to what Trinity is working on, not as a way to promote the shows, but because the actors will already be familiar with the material and will able to bring a richer perspective to the radio program.
Before they started, he said, WRNI General Manager Joe O’Connor told him there are “lots of stories on radio, but there’s no one who’s doing stories on radio with conversations about actors and their performance of it,” so this approach makes the Trinity show unique.
Selling more tickets isn’t really the goal, Columbus said. “I’m thinking of it as creating an artistic product and showcasing our actors.” For WRNI, O’Connor said in a note on the station’s Web site, “Trinity Rep Radio Theater” adds to WRNI’s “tradition of excellence.”
