|
|
|
|
Behind the Scenes with Rick Moody, author of Alamo: A Radio Play
Interview conducted by Julie Shapiro
> What inspired you to write a play for radio? Are you a fan of radio
dramas from the past?
Yeah, I love radio drama. I especially like the idea of radio drama as
practiced by Beckett and W. C. Fields. Fields, for instance, had a period late
in his career where radio was his favorite medium. He made movies from the
silent era onward, much influenced by his experience in Vaudeville. They were
very dependent on low physical comedy of the sort that was popular in
Vaudeville. As he got older though, he was less gifted in physical comedy, and
his alcoholism certainly got in the way. As a result, he moved into radio, a
venue that made improvisation, and puns very comfortable. To me, he was a truly
literary comedian. The radio pieces were about using the medium, being
spontaneous. And they were oriented toward the material of language, instead of
being about much.
> While writing Alamo, did accounting for the sound elements in it make
the process significantly different from writing a short story?
I think in sound anyway. I play music, so sound is often uppermost in my mind.
The significant difference in play writing, for me, was all the dialogue. Most
of my fiction is not noteworthy in its plenitude of dialogue.
> Did you know what you wanted the play to basically sound like, before
it was produced?
I didn't know exactly how I wanted it to sound, but I knew what kind of tone I
wanted it to have. Which is how I work, generally, in whatever medium occupies
me. I was in the good hands of an amazing sound designer, Bruce Odland, and he
proved expert at getting the right mixture of menace and comedy, which was what
I was after.
> Writing is a mostly solitary endeavor. What was it like to work with a
cast of characters?
Very pleasant. That has been part of the fun of radio pieces: getting out of my
my solitary rut. I remember, for example, feeling sort of devastated when Alamo
finally played on the radio, because it meant I wasn't going to get to go into
the WNYC offices anymore.
> You've recorded several of your short stories for the radio, with
musicians and artists playing along. How do you imagine the experience of
hearing these versions of the stories differs from reading them?
Well, I think literature really benefits from being performed. It makes the
beauty of the language more apparent, and it makes an implied voice an actual
instrument. I always feel like I understand literature better when I've heard
it read aloud. For example, there's a recording of James Joyce reading some of
Finnegans Wake. That's a very difficult book, but it sounds fabulous when Joyce
reads from it.
> Do you think it's more intimate for a listener to hear these
stories/your voice, than to read them on paper?
I don't know if I'd say "intimate," since I think the bond between reader and
writer is extremely intimate. It's like whispering in someone's ear. But
hearing things aloud, as I've said above, makes the relationship more dynamic
somehow.
> Do you find working with audio restrictive in any way, compared with
writing?
It's just a different set of requirements. I like requirements. I like
assignments. I like working outside of the comfort zone a little bit. I like
trying things. I like thinking differently. All of these inclinations make
audio seem like rich area for experiment.
> You use italics in your writing, in very intentional, noticeable ways.
What's the audio equivalent of italics? What do they sound like?
They don't sound like the same thing all the time. They are meant to convey the
possibility of second register in a narrative voice. When I read them aloud it
usually sounds like a change in emphasis or tone. Sometimes I'm more emphatic,
sometimes they just provide an opportunity to think more carefully about a
certain morsel of meaning, a cliché or a bit of subliterary jargon.
|
|
|
|
|
|
