Who killed Sri Lanka's radio drama?

Radio play or radio drama is one of the oldest modes of entertainment in the 20th century. However, it is not as old as drama or play which goes back to Roman and Greek civilizations. Radio play is a mode of storytelling which is broadcast on radio. Radio plays rely entirely on dialogues, music and sound effect unlike a conventional teledrama or soap operas which are strongly focused on visual elements. Arguably the strength and the weaknesses of the media lie in its confinement to voice, dialogues, sound effects and the audience.

In the 1920s as soon as the radio play came into being, it enjoyed unprecedented popularity among listeners. It has been recorded that by the 1940s, radio drama became a major popular media entertainment internationally. However, with the advent of television in the 1950s, the radio plays lost its popularity and the audience to television. The situation in Sri Lanka has a similar story where the radio plays were popular in the 60s and 70s and with the advent of the television in the 1980s teledramas attracted the radio drama audiences.

The principal strength of the media as an art form is that it helps listeners to imagine a story rather than depicting a story as on television or cinema. A significant feature of radio drama is that the entire background of the play is being re-created in the minds of the listeners through a masterly manipulation of dialogues, music and sound effects. Since it is required to grab the attention of the listeners throughout the play and in order to keep the continuity of the narration, the script writer of radio play, uses very effective but short dialogues and phrases.

In order to aid the imagination of the listeners, special sound effects together with key words have been used. For instance, if an actor is leaving, the radio playwright may use the sound of an opening door and closing it to indicate that the actor has left. Sounds such as noise of vehicles, sea waves, blowing of the wind, hustle and bustle of a market or a congested highway are used to create a mind picture of the background in the listeners.

Key role of dialogues

Unlike in a conventional drama, dialogues play a vital role in a radio play. It should be mentioned here that the radio playwright would not use dialogues just to narrate a story. For instance, introduction of characters, evolution of characters and diverse personalities, moods, mentalities and their plethora of emotions have, in fact, been embedded in a series of masterly crafted dialogues. In fact, entire characterisation of the radio play is done through dialogues.

Personality, age and social status of a character is by and large are dependent on the manner in which a character delivers dialogues, tone and the mode of expression. It is a home truth that language of a fisherman in a market is different from the words utilised by an Editor-in-Chief of a newspaper. Similarly, the words, phrases, structures of sentences and the selection of specific words would differ from one character to another, depending on factors such as class, caste, creed, nationality, level of education and finally social status.

In real life scenario, personality is depicted by many other means other than the language in which one speaks. One's attire, degree of fashion-consciousness, style of speaking, appearance and disposition will not only reveal one's personality but also many other factors such as the level of education and social status.

Since the listener can not watch the character, it is only through dialogues and the tones that the listener can imagine the personality of a character. Radio play Wright should also be mindful in keeping the type of speaking of a character throughout the play otherwise the listener would confuse the diverse characters in the play. It should be borne in mind that it is not the language that differs on different occasions but the mode of expression.

One of the important facets of radio play is that characters should be different and easily distinguishable. Some of the factors that virtually kill the interest of the radio play on the part of the listener are long harangues, incoherent dialogues and poor handling of sound effects.

On examining the phenomenal growth and decline of the medium, it is clear that the radio plays or radio drama lost its pre-eminent position held as one of the principal modes of mass entertainment following the advent of television in 1950s. However, the radio plays broadcast over OTR (Old Time Radio) are preserved in radio archives of collectors and museums. Sometimes, the terms 'audio-drama' and 'audio-theatre' are being used synonymously with radio play. However, the principal difference between the radio play and 'audio-drama' or 'audio-theatre' is that 'audio-theatre' and 'audio-drama' are not exclusively meant for broadcasting. Newly produced audio drama or OTR is available on CDs, cassette tapes or podcast or webcast.

Contemporary radio play

Despite the onslaught of powerful audio-visual media, radio play still remains popular and is enjoyed by thousands of listeners. Radio plays such as 'The archers', 'Silver Street' and 'West way' are still popular among listeners. BBC radio still produces a large number of radio plays and broadcast them on their diverse channels. Sri Lankan listeners still enjoy radio plays albeit the number may be less than in the 1950s and 1960s.

Radio play in Sri Lanka

It was Sri Lanka Broadcasting Corporation (SLBC) which pioneered the introduction of radio play to Sri Lankan listeners. In the absence of television, the radio play enjoyed unprecedented popularity in the 1950s and 1960s as one of the principal modes of mass entertainment. In a single night, it has been estimated that over 200,000 listeners enjoy the radio play which exceeds the lifetime of fans of either filmmaker or dramatist. In the golden era of the radio play artistes such as J.H. Jayawardena, P. Welikala, Ediriweera Sarath Chandra were prominent. The radio drama based on the character "Inspector Perera" in the 50s and 60s by J.H. Jayewardene was able to increase the audience. Similarly, the radio play, 'Muwan Pallessa' produced by Mudalinayake Somarathne in the 60s was a hit reaching a vast number of listeners across the country.

However, the complete potential of this vital mode of entertainment has not yet been realised. Though the national channel of the SLBC produced 'Guwanviduli Rangamadala' (Radio Theatre) and 'Buddhist Drama', radio drama has not been used to improve the public taste or introduce world literature to the masses in a systematic manner.

It should be mentioned that SLBC's National Service, from time to time, attempted to produce a series of radio plays based on classical works of fiction from world literature in Sinhala. Some of these include the translations of Russian work such as Oblomov based on the best known Russian novel by Ivan Goncharov, Tess of the d'Urbervilles based on a novel by Thomas Hardy and even Ediriwera Sarachchandra's classic 'Malagiya Eththo' produced by P. Welikale who introduced some great Sinhala radio plays during the golden era of the SLBC. It is a pity that no serious or even historical analysis of such work has been done by mass communication gurus in Sri Lanka.

Unfortunately, today's radio play in Sinhala has been reduced to mere listener-puller for some privately-owned radio stations which run meaningless melodramas masquerading as radio plays. Such attempts not only reduce radio play as a soap opera intended selling goods but also lowering the public taste.

If we have talented writers and translators of the new generation, it may be a useful experiment for them to write good radio plays to break the monopoly of silly teledramas that capture and brainwash the minds of our generation.