THE WEEK’S RADIO Ionesco’s Views On Theatre

Press, Volume XCIX, Issue 29368, 22 November 1960, Page 25

THE WEEK’S RADIO Ionesco’s Views On Theatre

In his introduction to the 8.8. C. production of Eugene lonesco’s play, “L’lmpromptu de I’Alma” (YCs, 8 p.m., Friday), Ivor Brown, the distinguished drania critic and writer, has quite a lot to say of the author, about whom, he says, there is nothing ordinary.

lonesco was bom in Rumania in 1912, but while still a baby he was taken to Paris by his parents and lived there until he was 13. The family returned to Rumania, but in 1938 lonesco went _ back to France, where he has lived ever since. He has a Chinese wife and one daughter, and he works for a publisher of law books—the theatre is a sideline. “I wrote for the theatre quite by accident,” he once explained. “Intending to mock it, I began to love it ... To bring fantasies to life in flesh and blood is an extraordinary experience, quite without parallel. I was dazzled to see on the stage at the Noctanjbule Theatre the performance of my first play, people of my own creation walking about that stage. I felt afraid What had given me the right to .... at? K was almost diabolical!”

But, devilish or not, lonesco could not give it up. This, the first performance in English of L Impromptu de I’Alma,” was originally broadcast in the 8.8. C Third Programme. The centrai character of the play is lonesco himself. He is visited by three wise men who forcibly inform him exactly how he should set about the difficult art of writing plays, piey use very long words and their heads are buzzing with theory after theory. One of them is all for Bertolt Brecht and his theory of alienation, which means that a producer or director governs everything and forbids the actor to feel his part for himself. lonesco hates Brecht’s method because it is cold and rational. He wants the theatre to be animated hv a spirit of fancy-free. He likes a stage where anything can happen. Critics have compared lonesco’s world with that of “Alice in Wonderland,” but, as Ivor Brown points out, “it is worth remembering that ‘Alice’ was written for a child, and now it is the intellectuals who are being treated as children. It has been well said that when you sit down to see a play by lonesco you are like passengers in an aeronlane when the attendant says. ‘Fasten your safetv belts, people. It’s going to be a bumpy evening . . .’” Modern Music

The 20th century is not marked by the curiosity and interest in its own music that was shown in the past, but there are still many who like to know what composers are doing nowadays. Some of the answers may be found in a series of programmes recorded by the West German Radio at the 1960 festival of the International Society for Contemporary Music. The programmes contain music by composers as famous as Stravinsky and others who will be totally unknown and will doubtless remain so. As is always the case with new experimental music, many of the works will seem bizarre and meaningless, but noone should get too alarmed over that, for assemblages of new music have always contained a pronortion of dross. The first I.S.C.M. concerts will be heard from the YCs at 9.15 p.m. on Thursday and 8.15 p.m. on Friday. U.N. Concert

Those who prefer to stick to the" established classics will find more to interest them in the 1960 United Nations Concert, which will be rebroadcast, by the YCs at 8 o’clock tonight. As in previous United Nations concerts the items come from various parts of the earth. The Swiss Romande Orchestra under Ernest Ansermet opens the concert with Bach’s Suite No. 3 in D. This is followed by Roussel’s Suite" in F played by the Tokyo Broadcasting Symphony Orchestra conducted by Paul Kletzki and Hugo Wolf songs sung by the baritone, . Dietrich Fischer-Dies-kau. After a message from the United Nations Secretary-Gen-eral (Mr Hanunarskjold), the programme ends with Beethoven’s ' Choral Symphony performed by the Philadelphia Symphony Orchestra, and the Choir of Temple University conducted by Eugene Ormandy. The 1960 Bayreuth Festival “Ring of the Nibelung” will continue from the YCs at 6.45 p.m.

on Sunday with "Siegfried.” Brunnhilde is again Birgit Nilsson and Siegfried is the tenor, Hans Hopf. Rudolf Kempe again conducts the Bayreuth Festival Orchestra. Election Or Offenbach In terms of size of listening audience, the biggest radio event of the week will undoubtedly be a novel version of “Saturday Night at Home” in which results of a nation-wide popularity contest held earlier in the day will be announced by all stations except the YCs. By 9.45 p.m. the trend if not the result of the election should be known and a considerable proportion of the population will be disappointed. If they seek diversion in music there could be no better programme than that coming from 3YC, which at 9.45 p.m. will broadcast music by Offenbach, the gayest of all composers. The programme begins with “Gaite Parisienne.” the popular ballet suite arranged from Offenbach’s operas comiques by Manuel Rosenthal. This is followed by arias from two of the lesser known of Offenbach’s 90 stage works—- “ Madame I’Archiduc,” which the great conductor, Hans von Bulow, said was “worthy of a Mozart,” and “The Grand Duchess of Gerolstein.” The programme ends with more familiar excerpts from “The Tales of Hoffman.” For the election results, the YA stations will link at 7.15 p.m., broadcasting progress and final results from all parts of the country, with summaries every half hour from 8 p.m. Local results will be broadcast by 3ZB, 3YZ, and the X stations. The X stations and 3YZ will join the national link when local results are completed. Chekhov Play Ivan Pitrovich Rogov is a clerk in a government office who returns home to find his wife, Liza, kissing another man. He is amazed and, not surprisingly, put out when the other man, Grisha, offers him 150.000 roubles as recompense for the loss of his wife. Rogov, who for years has dreamed of a life of ease, wealth and luxury, accepts with alacrity. But he soon finds that money is not everything. How he gets the best of both worlds is revealed in the play,. “Wife For Sale,” from the YA’s at 7.30 p.m. on Monday. This play is based on Anton Chekhov’s “Live Merchandise” and has been adapted for radio and translated by David Tutaev. In William Austin’s N.Z.B.S. production, Rogov is played by Selwyn Toogood, Liza by Joanna Darrill and Grisha by Antony Groser. Space Age Sounds “Rockets, Missiles and Space Travel,” (YAs, 3.30 p.m., Sunday) is a recording designed by Willy Ley, the famous science writer and a founder of the German Rocket Society, to supplement his book of the same name. It contains the sounds of a giant Atlas missile and other rockets thundering into the sky as well as the suspenseful countdown before launching. Among the rocket and space scientists heard in the programme is the German rocket expert, Wernher von Braun.