The Catholic Stage

Address to the Catholic Theatre Conference, Oct. 18, 1958. 

THIS TELEVISION AGE

"Shall I announce the title as if it were followed by an exclamation point and say it thus? THIS TELEVISION AGE! Or shall it be as if followed by a question mark? The second, I choose. For if you and I think we're living in a new age called the tele vision or audio-visual age, we're deluded. Mankind has always lived in this age. Man was issued into a sense world, equipped with evident means of contacting reality -- his five senses. And being such a complicated creation, man's capabilities far exceed those of the super-sensitive tele-vision tube of 1958. For man not only makes contacts with reality, he interprets them. And the more of both he is able to do, the more of man is he. The Greeks had a way of expressing it. According to them, Minerva, Goddess of Ideas, sprang fully armed (equipped) from the head of Zeus. We say it this way: And so man, made in the image and likeness of God, was created to know, love, and serve his Creator .... and was given the means to do so, -- even though that service may be in drama or television.

If this is not the age of tele vision (sights and sounds), how then shall we identify it? The age of deaf-dumb mutes? One author calls it that. If a moon-visitor were to zoom in and ask, "When do you live?" in much the same way you and I ask a child, "Where do you live?", we could curtsy politely and reply, "Sir, I live at the beginning of an age that has caught sights and sounds electronically." To bring the Man from the Moon up to date, we could cut back a few thousand years, select a specific area, narrow down to two people, a teacher and a pupil, and proceed. Five thousand years ago, these two communicated via voice. Four thousand years ago, they communicated by voice and written word -- frozen on a manuscript. Five hundred years ago, the written word became a printed word, stored in a deep deep freeze, sometimes called a book. From that time on, these two -- the book and the voice of the teacher -- have dominated learning. Then came a rush of instruments of communications -- photography, lantern slides, turntables, filmstrips, tape records, moving pictures and .. at long last .. electronic television!

The scripted word, the printed word in its frozen or embalmed state became a symbol, part of the objective world, something to be seen -- an ice cube or a mite of a mummy. And the printed age became a conglomeration of such symbols to be scanned -- one level -- one line at a time. Little wonder that we refer to "literal" interpretations."

The problem of oral-aural versus sight symbol can be illustrated through the Humpty Dumpty nursery rhyme. Let the curved, spherical egg-body known as Humpty Dumpty represent the rounded spherical ORAL word. Let the angled, hard, brick-like parapet represent print or script. Then let us proceed: 

'Humpty Dumpty sat on the wall.

He fell!

All the king's horses and all the king's men couldn't put the spherical, round, shattered oral word together again.....

That was before the mid-twentieth century, of course! An electronic device, a manifestation of the Wisdom of the King of Kings, enables the King's men and the King's women to gather the fragments -- if the men and the women are both willing and able.'

If you've ever been a watcher, and if you've ever been a watcher who watches a watcher, you've observed this electronic device bringing the word back to life, de-frosting it.

Television's double-contact (video and audio) plus the single impact, call it what you will -- psychological clash of mind to mind; empathic action. It's there! Television can hold a child when his mother's voice cannot, even when the voice says, "Jimmy, dinner's ready!"

Television, like other communications media, is a new language. It combines sight and sound and minimizes the frozen word. Maybe Johnny doesn't need to read! The object he views supplants the hieroglyphic symbol, joins with the sound and Presto! Johnny has an idea! Communication media may be new languages, but each one is different -- in the same way that our written-spoken languages are. Three of the new media -- radio, film, and television are dramatic media -- and the most dramatic is television which combines language, music, art, and dance. Deep emotional experience, not more "information" is conveyed. Each medium selects its idea. TV is a tiny box into which people are crowded and must live; film gives us the wide wide world. With its huge screen, film is perfectly suited to spectaculars, to the sea, to battle scenes. In contrast, TV screens only have room for two, at the most three, faces comfortably. TV is closer to stage, yet different. Cameras focus on persons spoken to or about, not on the speaker. The audience hears the accuser but watches the accused -- his trembling hand, his twitching lip, the fright in the eye. This is real drama, intensified with TV's most potent weapon -- the CLOSE UP. Paddy Chayefsky in Explorations 7 says it this way:

     ' The theatre audience is far away from the actual action of the drama. They cannot see the silent reactions of the players. They must be told in a loud voice what is going on. The plot movement from one scene to another must be marked, rather than gently shaded as is required in television. In television, however, you can dig into the most humble, ordinary relationships; the relationship of bourgeois children to their mother, of the middle-class husband to his wife, of the white-caller father to his secretary -- in short, the relationships of people... ' 

He goes on to say that Greek drama is more readily adapted to TV than to film. The boxed-in quality of live TV lends itself to static literary tragedy with greater ease than does the elastic, energetic, expandable movie. 

If all this potential is in television, why is there so much mediocre, even "bad" television? Television grew too fast! From 6 televisions stations in 1945 to more than 500 in ten years! From 8,000 sets in use in 1946 to forty-one million in the first six months of 1956. Television just didn't have a chance. Instead of the other art forms adapting to the new media, they tried to prostelytize television. And what have we? Old movies, slap-stick comedy -- personalities from radio, movies, stage crossing over the line and dragging the tricks of their trades with them. Five or six years ago, every performance brought this query at least once: "Now what about my make-up for television?"

The best things on television are the commercials between the programs. These are written and produced for television; they are not imitations or borrowings from other arts. As soon as the programs become as good as the commercials, television will come into its own.

There's a reservoir of possibility in television -- and those who know drama should be getting ready to contribute -- and to utilize it. One of the simplest (simplicity is key to success in television) formats that has not been used to any extent has proved both artistic and effective. Two areas of action are used -- no defined set, and a minimum of props. We called one of these -- "The Children's Hour".. A choric speaking arrangement of 8 girls used one area; in the other simple vignettes illustrating the children's poems. By use of the SUPERS .. by the C.U., by proper pacing, that program brought this reaction from the director -- who happened to be a transfer from the movies -- 'You've found a natural format for television!' But say 'choric drama' or 'choral speech' to some program managers and you might as well say 'let's do an elocution recital on TV." 

This prostelytizing should be a two-way process.

Fantasy, we have found, is effective on television. Three series, with eight programs in each, have been completed and we're planning another. These have been in poetry, folk literature, and music. If time permits, I should like to have you view one of the first we made. As you watch, remember that it was produced at an educational station, with an amateur crew, and that it was made two years ago. We've been learning new things every day. My reason for showing it to you is to show you the possibility of combining drama with television.

The program that is making commendable use of television as an art form by utilizing the medium to its fullest is Camera 3, a CBS production, originating in New York, and coming to Pittsburgh on Sunday mornings at 11:30.

I don't know how you felt about Bernadette the other night, but I was sadly disappointed. To me, it was like a meditation filled with distractions. Only the sustained religious spirit of Pere Angel held it together at all. Far more satisfying was a semi-professional 30 minute version, written especially for television, and produced on an education station. Stripped of all but essential sets, making full use of tone values, and using the basic idea of antagonist and protagonist, the play caught the 'light that shone through' the Bernadette story. But always one must remember that television is a cooperative. That same script, under a drama director who did not understand television nor the script, became a gasping hybrid of stage and television on a commerical station. Bernadette became a whimpering mistreated child -- not a saint! And yet the same Bernadette was used! We're treading on precarious ground, for sure. 

Yet those who understand drama and ritual should not shy away from it. Rather they are the logical ones to contribute to it. But first, let them familiarize themselves with the technical aspects of the medium, recognize it as another art form, then adapt that which is amenable.

After all -- the King's men and the King's women can't put a show together unless they know what the parts are, and where they belong. All the King's men and women are needed, for the success of a production depends on script, production, and talent!"