Reply, by 'BEN/MMT': 'The Drama Studio', 13 April 1927
7.4.1
These two documents, 'The Drama Studio' by R.E. Jeffrey, 1,300 word long, and a reply, signed 'BEN/MMT', nearly 600 words, are an extraordinary exchange about the basic production system of drama within Savoy Hill. For convenience, I will refer to the 'BEN/MMT' paper as the Reply. The initials 'BEN' must refer to B.E. Nicholls (later Sir Basil) who arrived in early summer 1925 from the Manchester station and became London Station Director in Christmas of that year (Briggs, 1961, 253-4, 308).
Jeffrey proposed a revolution. The Production Department should leave the building and move to a theatre with a 'stage small enough to be accepted as a picture', no orchestra pit, no scenery, but 'broad lighting effects and resounding shadows', and with an audience not allowed to applaud. Also:
The atmosphere of the place is nearer to that of a cathedral than a commercial theatre. … It would result in a perfect radio production for listeners.
This was written in a manifesto style, but with no detail and no exploration of the changes needed to the whole broadcasting chain of wireless drama and creativity, and no consideration of budget. It throws away the matrix of engineers, artists and management Boards around the Production Department, in the one building. A view of this manifesto is that Jeffrey was really pleading to be manager of an art theatre typical of the Continental 'free theatre' movement, or the equivalent of London's Everyman or Gate, but it happened to be for wireless. Here, under a sudden revealing spotlight, is the Jeffrey of Gielgud's final judgement and in the comparison made with Cecil Lewis, that Jeffrey was:
… far more ' of the theatre,' far less ' of the world'
(Gielgud, 1957, 26)
7.4.2
Jeffrey had thrown out a hint a couple of years ago in 'The Need for a Radio Drama' ('The Radio Times' 17 July 1925):
In future, also, there may be an actual stage and the players may dress their parts - all with the idea of getting the right "atmosphere".
(See 5.4.3.) So here came the 'Drama Studio' manifesto, subsequent to all the discussion, investment and creative engineering work about developing the 'new art form' of the radio play. This went back to Bernard Shaw on the 'invisible theatre' and his words were even more pertinent now:
As to broadcasting plays, I think that you are on the wrong tack about it. … You want to broadcast plays; and instead of recognizing that the invisible play is a new thing, and cannot be done in the old way, you persist in asking handsome actresses - and well-known pictorial producers - to get up ordinary theatrical performances and allow the public to overhear the dialogue.
('G.B.S. Lectures the B.B.C.', 'The Radio Times' 14 November 1924 p 357)
Jeffrey's manifesto for an exodus from Savoy Hill looks like the ultimate realisation of the 'Theatre Model' and of the 'fixed-stage' set-up. So this will be examined in detail below.
7.4.3
The second document, the 'BEN' (B.E. Nicholls) Reply, is shorter and devastating. It summarises the project as 'an abandonment of all idea of a separate broadcast technique …merely to lead us back to the theatre'. It goes on to discuss Studio and technique problems with a detail and intelligence not to be found in all of Jeffrey's writings. Indeed, it is the most perceptive critique of Savoy Hill production to date and is only matched by the internal report on Cecil Lewis's 'Pursuit' in 1928. Nicholls had come from the Manchester Station, where the innovative Victor Smythe directed the '2ZY' Drama Repertory Company. Nicholls had just prepared a glum paper about programme content and given it to Roger Eckersley in January 1926, saying 'we have not got much forwarder in the choice of material' (Briggs, 1961, 391).
Of course, the move to this utopian 'Drama Studio' did not take place and one wonders what response it got from Reith. Nicholls' paper gives a taste. Already there were hints about planning a new building, to become, later than was hoped, Broadcasting House, opened in March 1932. Fortunately this forward planning became the responsibility of Val Gielgud.
7.4.4
Here is some Production Department context as I examine the two papers in detail. The new largest Studio, No. 7, mostly for orchestras and variety, had just been opened. A list of the most recent large productions just illustrates the symbiosis of Savoy Hill studio suite with actors and director. There was Sieveking's 'The Seven Ages of Mechanical Music' (13 January 1927 London 10-10.30), an adaptation of Marian Bower's and Leon M. Lion's 1918 stage play, 'The Chinese Puzzle' (4 February 1927 London 7.30-9), in which Lion recreated his famous role as the Marquis Chi Lung, and the much-acclaimed adaptation of Conrad's novel, 'Lord Jim', by Cecil Lewis (18 February 1927). Another novel adaptation, 'Trilby' ( 23 February 1927 London 9.45-11) was the first to use the new studio suite and control panel. And there was 'Cyrano de Bergerac' (Edmond Rostand) (11 April 1927 London 9.20-11), with its most famous English exponent, Robert Loraine.
These plays had large casts: fourteen for 'Trilby' and seventeen for 'Cyrano'. Their stage originals came from the largest and most prestigious theatres. The newest Studio No. 7 had a floor 860 feet square (43 feet x 20 feet) and was a bit larger than Studio No. 1 (built autumn 1924), but much loftier (22 feet). These studios could accommodate 'Trilby' and 'Cyrano' casts, with technicians, and they had, especially in the new Studio No. 7, the height. But what would be the stage size of Jeffrey's 'Drama Studio', which would have to be a rented theatre?
7.4.4
Jeffrey's preamble to 'The Drama Studio' paper is as verbose and meandering as his 'Radio Times' articles. The subheading is 'A place to improve, create and present artistic dramatic productions for listeners and visible audiences'. This is his argument for the performing actor's need of a live audience:
The artist, especially the one who expresses himself by internal force translated by speech and posture must express. Psychologically I believe this art to be the outcome of a trend towards exhibitionism guided into higher channels by education and training – not only in the lifetime of the artist but by past demands for ordered society.To my knowledge no artist has ever grown to anything like excellence in expression before having the experience of playing to audiences. The audience is a need of the artist. They react to his moods. The effect is cumulative and reciprocal.
Again the style is such that some parts of the paper almost need translation. Jeffrey goes on point out elements of the stage performance which must be eradicated from the wireless:
Crudities which have been and still are tolerated on the stage, are, when used by broadcast, shorn of their virtue (if indeed they possess any) and revealed as being offensive and artistically unsound.
Presumably this means 'barnstorming' acting and suchlike. Continuing, he points out that giving the audience stars is not enough and little or no artistic progress has been made. So after nearly four hundred words, he gets to the proposal:
I suggest that this scheme of an outside DRAMA STUDIO (or whatever in future it may be named) will elevate our work to a dignity it will otherwise never possess. It will also accomplish a work worthy of a great organisation such as this, which has so much power over the minds and taste of the people.
7.4.5
But having touched this, he gives no further explanation as yet, and veers off on an attack – familiar territory of his – on the 'stagnant' commercial stage and its 'same tricks … the same false noses, false hair, and false voices; architecturally impossible rooms, unconvincing attempts to reproduce apparently real woods and mountains with paint and canvas.' His 'Drama Studio' will create a new type of broadcast artist and production, and 'a better and more artistic type of production and expression for visible audiences'. The latter presumably mean the live audiences in this new 'Drama Studio'. (And the very title, which omits 'radio', looks more and more indicative.) There is only a mention here of 'financial' success, again presumably from ticket sales to the public, though that is not explored.
Jeffrey's style now becomes even more visionary and this is the core of his proposal:
Imagine a theatre, not necessarily large, but entirely opposed to the gaudy places we now visit. Here are produced those works of deep significance and power which already exist in the language. The atmosphere of the place is nearer to that of a cathedral than a commercial theatre. The audience faces a stage small enough to be accepted as a picture. At the moment it is merely a dark space. No orchestral pit – no musicians rustling in and out of places – no tuning up of instruments.
As the moment for the commencement of the play approaches, appropriate music from an adequate orchestra gradually makes itself heard and soon reaches an impressive volume. It comes from no particular place; it is around us. This music is not of the entr'acte order, it is not for the purpose of filling in an inartistic break, but it is a definite part of an artistic whole. It gradually lessens in volume and as it does so, fine gradations of light as gradually reveal the stage, not in the hard detail of a Watteau, but rather with the suggestive shadows and lights of a Rembrandt. No scenery of the usual type is seen, but broad lighting effects and resounding shadows present a picture of a mood rather than of the orthodox painted scene. The players move form and posture. No straining of brilliance to show facial expression; but every word is expressively spoken, and the spirit of the mood is caught.
This has a hint of the 'Gesamtkunstwerk' but in the service of wireless drama. While on stage they 'express their individuality and art to the utmost of their capacity', they:
… are conscious of the faces of the audience in the dimness beyond them. This awareness of others provides the urge for the projection of their personalities; the vindication of themselves as artists.
7.4.6
At the end of the performance:
No applause follows. The audience is but watching an artistic picture. As the picture fades from sight (no curtain is seen to fall) music from a mysterious source gradually fills the place again.
He covers the last details. Changes of scene are done by lighting effects, and he had experience directing in this way in the past. He claims the 'Drama Studio' would yield the best vocal performances and 'Perfect transmission from the broadcast point of view'. He also adds, oddly:
Lastly – and this may be exceedingly important – the new production and presentation technique for combined television and broadcast sound will be fait accompli.
He looks forward to calling a meeting of some of the Control Board and then asking for the authority 'as officer responsible for the dramatic work' to investigate 'renting suitable premises for given periods, and reporting on costs of fitments, players etc.'.
7.4.7
Nicholls' Reply begins by finding 'nothing' in the 'Drama Studio' proposal.
He demolishes each of Jeffrey's points in order, though at the same time rephrasing them in more intellectually cogent terms. He adds:
I have no doubt that the stage regards our dramatic efforts as second-rate. I see nothing new or important in playing with lights or plain backgrounds. …
I do not agree that a really great actor needs an audience. He should be and is so bound up in his part that he is quite oblivious of everything except his immediate surroundings. … an invisible audience can and does fulfil the same function as a visible audience.
At his point he adds:
(CF. Charlie Chaplin, as P.P.E. observes).
So this aside suggests that Nicholls' Reply was after management discussion and this is a summative paper of dismissal for the proposal. Nicholls then lists the practical objections which Jeffrey has missed: costs in the actors learning their parts, the small stage which would limit the choice of plays, the difficulties of relaying from the theatre stage, the suppression of audience applause – 'why have an audience?' – and finance, as 'this type of performance … has lost money for various people for generations'. He also adds the key technical difficulty:
… reconciling audibility in a theatre (which must, therefore, be resonant) with audibility per microphone. The unobtrusive declamation would have to be heard in the theatre. … In general, I see nothing in these suggestions of value which could not be applied in our present studio technique, (perfecting of voice, music welling up from nowhere, (i.e. another studio), finer shades of acting, subdued lighting, etc.)
7.4.8
The end of his paper is a swift condemnation of the Production Department:
Frankly I think our experiments might begin at home, e.g., by eliminating obtrusive declamation (Henry Oscar as Mark Antony), and by working up the studio atmosphere, which, in my experience, has often been spoiled by things like members of the Dramatic staff entering or leaving studios during plays. (I have even seen plus-fours figuring in this environment.)
On the artistic side I do not candidly think that we have been conspicuous in the past for artistic choice or artistic production of plays and I do not see how transferring our attentions to a small theatre, in order to secure a visible audience, will help matters.
I find that in auditions and broadcasts the artists generally visualise their vast unseen audience only too thoroughly, and any artist who cannot do so must be thoroughly lacking in sensibility.
If those were the only issues, it is surprising that Jeffrey was retained till the end of 1928. We have here a glimpse of the Department at work and it is a pity that further memoes have not survived such as this. What was this 'studio atmosphere'? And what where the protocols of behaviour in the studios, especially during the broadcasts themselves?
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