ARTS AND ENTERTAINMENT Capturing A Consuming Fire For The Record

Press, Volume CIII, Issue 30636, 30 December 1964, Page 6

ARTS AND ENTERTAINMENT Capturing A Consuming Fire For The Record

(By

GEORGE R. MAREK,

manager of R.C.A. Victor Records Division)

The interpretation of the Moor of Venice by Sir, Laurence Olivier is a consuming fire. That fire engulfed both the theatrical critics of London and the public. To'state it simply, “Othello,” played in repertory by the Old Vic Company, became the biggest theatre hit of London’s last season and continues to be so this season. It seemed that all we needed to do was to have the actors speak that “modern theatrical myth” and we would have the play down on tape and in the grooves. But it was not quite that simple. After witnessing several performances we decided to record the play not as a “reading” but truly as a performance. First we blocked out the play, charting the entrances, exits, movements, sound effects, etc. We then prepared the large Decca studio in London as a stage, coming as closely as we could to the actual setting of the Old Vic Theatre. Exits and entrances were constructed approximately where they were on

the stage. We experimented for a day with microphone placements, without the actors there, placing these so that no matter how or where an actor moved, his speech could be caught. In all, we utilised eight "hidden” microphones, five stage-front and three stage-rear. Long Takes

We had decided not to do small excerpts of the play. Our plan was to record at least an entire scene at a time, and, in some cases, two or three scenes before stopping. This, it was agreed, would give “line” to the performance. To make sure the entire cast was giving a performance that would come as closely as possible to duplicating the tremendous stage effort, we asked John Dexter, director of “Othello,” to be in the control booth with us at all times. His heip proved to be invaluable. Darkening our studio lights to simulate the heady, exciting air of the theatre and to give the actors a feeling that an audience was out there, we

began the recording with Act I, Scene 1 and went sequentially through the play. We (Mr Dexter, our recording director, Charles Gerhardt, myself and our engineer, Arthur Lilley) could, of course, see the actors through the glass-paned wall of the control booth; and we were soon so engrossed in the action that we became an audience and were oblivious to the technical problems of a recording project. Recognising the danger of this, we curtained our glass pane, deprived ourselves of the disconcerting, if delightful, visual histrionics unwinding before us, and settled to the task of achieving an audible performance for our “Othello” album.

Without Script

At no time was a script used. And not once during the entire recording session of takes and re-takes was there less than all-out performance delivered. In the final scene, when Othello kills Desdemona, the bed was in our studio, so that Desdemona (Maggie Smith) lay “murder’d in her bed.” To accomplish this we had the props and scenery from the original production shipped to the studio.

Even those props which are unheard were used by us. When Othello turns to the lamp in the bedchamber and says, “Put out the light, and then put out the light,” the lamp was there. Any and all sound effects and extraneous noises heard by the play’s theatre audience are heard on our recording.

From beginning to end, our recording session was staged with a precision over details that seemed to please and amuse Sir Laurence Olivier. At one point during rehearsals, he waved his arm in a wide arc which took in the whole studio and proclaimed it, “Ye Olde Victor Theatre”! The performance of our “Othello” played for just over three hours; our album (a four-disc set) has the same running time as the play. To get those three hours, to get what Sir Laurence Olivier, the cast and we had hoped to capture, took 11 hours.