Some preamble

When I moved to Dublin I had two contrasting issues to deal with. Number one was the excitement. I was in a new country, with new people, and new culture. Everything was new and different and was pulling my attention in every direction there was. And every other immigrant I met here felt the same. We were all excited and our point of connection was this shared experience of starting our lives over. Which led to number 2, I missed my friends. I missed the people I had known for years, who I could have casual coffee conversations with. Who I could invite on road trips, and talk to when I was feeling elated, depressed, or just sociable.

These are the interactions you don’t have at meetups. These are the conversations you have with people whom you’ve shared time with.

When you move to a new country, you have to find your people. Maybe it’s tennis fans, or movie buffs. Maybe you need to be around historians, or tinkerers. What I didn’t realise, is that I need to be around artists. In particular it seems, in the theatre. The first meaningful relationships I’ve been able to make in this land have all come through the theatre.

I’ve been acting from a young age, went to drama school (like Fame), and when I started teaching I took all my performance skills to the classroom. But the actions of acting aren’t enough. It’s something different entirely to be in another person’s world, embodying a character that only exists in a script. In the theatre, it seems I’ve found my people.

You can imagine then how hard it was after just one year of connections, COVID and its lockdowns put a stop to everything. Like many groups we took to doing performances online. Everything from variety shows, to full play productions. I group I’m a member decided to read a play every Saturday. For a year we picked plays, cast them and performed them together, for our own amusement.

Having had a year of experience with this we decided to try an official production. However, rather than going to the route that many groups did forcing interaction through Zoom. We instead decided to go to a different format. We still used Zoom as a broadcasting medium (allowing live commentary), but for the play we decided to make good ol’fashioned radio plays.

The plays

We decided to go with four of Chekov’s short plays: The Bear, The Proposal, The Evils of Tobacco, and Swansong. These plays are not long (the longest comes in at 34 minutes) and yet create such a vivid picture of country life and grievances, in so comedic a form that they have instant appeal. Who has not found themselves attracted to an enemy, or lost themselves relishing in nostalgia?

These plays are in the public domain and exist in the original Russian, as well as in several translations, with each translator bringing their own humour to the script. The Brian Friel editions, have an especially strong bite to them.

Casting and directing

The project was sponsored by the Dublin Shakespeare Society, and it was through them that we arranged auditions (held virtually) and cast the plays. The actors were given the scripts as well as a pronunciation guide, and were then directed over several virtual sessions, with the director leading the interpretation, and myself making note of the delivery and providing technical direction.

When it came time to record we sent each of the actors a box containing their recording equipment as well as a written guide.

Live vs. pre-recorded

The choice for radio plays came from the limitations of video conferencing.

1. Latency: We’ve likely all experienced the the disjointed nature of online meetings. They’re slow. They all all sense of rhythm and drive, and the onyl to overcome this is to pre-empt your fellow actors, coming in on top of them so that it sounds natural to the audience. Of course the only need one person’s bad connection to spoil the pace.

2. Audio quality: Have you noticed in every meeting that there’s always usually only one person who’s thought about getting a good microphone. Part of the early challenges in doing online readings was to create a cohesive sound experience. By recording the performances in advance with specialist equipment it gave us freedom in editing the end results, and allowed us to produce a play with quality fit for broadcast.

3. Visual distraction: When we see a person on the screen we can’t help but pay attention to them. There’s also the common compulsion to sit in front of the camera yourself and be present. For this experience, we wanted people to lean back and lose themselves in the story, without being distracted by changing faces.

There are two other huge benefits to pre-recording that made me insist on the format.

1. Ambient sound design: With virtual conferencing providing preference to whomever the active speaker is it can be almost impossible to have well timed and subtle sound design.

2. Editing: In being able to edit the recordings I was able to benefit from multiple takes, creating a more consistent mix, and even adjust the pacing according to the director’s intentions.

It’s important as well to mention that Ireland has great tradition of radio plays, with the national broadcaster RTÉ regularly commissioning new works.

Recording

The recording process was perhaps the greatest challenge. The problem: How to make it easy for actors to self-record their lines.

The solution came in reducing the process down to a two-button operation.

Every actor was supplied with:

• a Zoom H1 portable stereo recorder

• a pop filter

• a tripod

• an instruction manual

Each recorder was calibrated in advance and sent to each actor with an instruction booklet that looked like this: Radio Shakes Recording Guide.

Thus we readied the Zoom room as we normally would, with every actor on a headset. I ran through the mic placement and procedure with the actors. The actors turned on the recorders, pressed record and began the play.

They were able to respond to one another as if performing a prepared reading, and yet all the recorder picked up was each actor’s personal lines. After the performance, we would do any repeats deemed necessary, the recorders were stopped, switched off, and collection was arranged.

Editing

The editing process was relatively simple, as each actor had a stem with their pauses clearly visible. I prepared many of the sound effects in advance (including field recording and Foley), added room ambiance, and added intro and outro music into a single audio file.

Enjoying

The plays were broadcast over Zoom were held over two nights with members of the society tuning in from their homes for an hour of radio comedy. After the performance the members were able to talk to the cast and mingle as they would have in person. The performances have since been archived and can still be heard by contacting the Dublin Shakespeare Society.

The performance of The Proposal can be heard on Dublin City FM’s Centre Stage.