(Treasure Island from The Mercury Theatre on the Air. I'm not giving away War of the Worlds here
)
Welles' entertainment rise to prominence came at the helm of the Mercury Theatre, his independent repertory theatre company that he founded and ran from 1937 until 1946. Barely out of his teens, Welles had clashed with a federal body that was promoting the founding of theatrical and artistic groups in the 1930s as part of FDR's New Deal economic policies. Frustrated by the control and oversight of the program, Welles broke from the group and founded the Mercury Theatre in 1937, whereupon it almost immediately became one of the preeminent theatrical companies in New York City. Less than a year into their existence Welles was approached by radio networks to adapt their performances for the burgeoning radio entertainment industry, beginning a relationship with the radio that saw Welles and his Mercury cohort produce dozens of shows for radio over a 10 year period.
a) Mercury Theatre Presents Les Miserables (1937)
The first time the Mercury Theatre group found themselves on the air was in 1937 when the Mutual Network approached Welles about performing a seven-part adaptation of Victor Hugo's famous novel. Welles would produce and direct the series, which aired weekly from July until September of '37 and garnered rave reviews (I've seen it on modern lists highlighting the best adaptations of the novel/play across
any medium)
b) The Mercury Shakespeare (1938)
Not exactly a radio program, but included for the sake of completeness and because it's available, in 1938 the theatre undertook a series of adaptations of Shakespeare plays at the behest of a former teacher of Welles from his boyhood. The result was a series of recorded performances as well as a set of short-form adaptation scripts of the plays suitable for school performances.
included are 5 performances, running 40 minutes to an hour and 45 minutes and featuring the likes of Julius Caesar, Twelfth Night, The Merchant of Venice, and Macbeth.
c) Mercury Theatre on the Air (1938)
A year after his radio debut, Welles and the Mercury got their biggest break with this series. The series ran on CBS without a sponsor for 22 weeks from July to December of 1938 with the company covering a wide array of notable novels, novellas, plays, and short stories all adapted for the hour time slot provided to them. It was in this run that Welles performed what is widely considered to be his most notable and important contribution to radio history when, fittingly enough the night before Halloween, the group performed an adaptation of H.G. Welles' "The War of the Worlds."
Though the stories of mass hysteria and panic are probably apocryphal and grossly overstated for the sake of publicity and spectacle, the success of the performance was such that it attracted a sponsor for the company's radio efforts and led to the end of this series and the beginning of the next.
Of the 22 episodes produced 18 survive and are presented here for you to enjoy. Yes, that includes The War of the Worlds.
If you're interested, the missing episodes would've featured Jane Eyre (this one is known to have been lost because Welles irreparably damaged the original recording while using it to prepare for his role in the 1943 film adaptation), Oliver Twist, Clarence (from a novel by Booth Tarkington) and The Bridge of San Luis Rey (from a novel by Thornton Wilder)
d) The Campbell Playhouse (1938-1940)
Having secured sponsorship funding from Campbells Soup as a result of the previous series' success, the group continued to adapt significant literary works for radio performance. However the presence of a sponsor meant additional oversight and Welles found himself frequently clashing with the studio and sponsor mandated liaison, who often rejected the darker and more serious works Welles wanted to perform in favor of lighter and more popular fare. In March of 1940 Campbell's contract with the Mercury Theatre wrapped up with a performance of Jane Eyre (which was one of the instance in which Welles was overruled. He wanted to perform a different work but it was rejected and the company's familiar adaptation of Jane Eyre was used instead) and Welles vowed never to deal with these sponsorship headaches again. Unfortunately for him this would not always be possible as he would routinely be called back to the lure of sponsor money which he could use to keep the theatre group and his other projects afloat.
e) The Orson Welles Show - Presented by Lady Esther (1941-42)
A year removed from his dispute with Campbell, Welles and some (but not all) of the Mercury performers returned to the radio in a new format. Sponsored by Lady Esther Cosmetics, the show which was alternately called The Orson Welles Show, Orson Welles and his Mercury Theatre, and The Lady Esther show, was more of a variety format series which presented short dramatic adaptations and scenes across many different genres and origins. Besides plays, cast members might simply read excerpts of books, plays, or poems, perform musical numbers, or simply comment on a topic (including most famously sequences where Welles would banter about random topics with voice actor Cliff Edwards using the voice in which he performed Jiminy Cricket for Disney's Pinocchio). However the series was not terribly successful and ran for 19 episodes between September of 1941 and February of 1942 before wrapping up when Welles was called off on filmmaking and entertainment projects at the behest of the government (no, really. FDR asked Welles to travel to South America and help produce a picture in an effort to foster stronger relations between North and South America. This will be touched on again in a later collection)
f) Orson Welles' Radio Almanac (1944)
Airing form January to July of 1944 after several years off the air, Welles returned with his "Radio Almanac", a variety program that featured music, comedy, dramatic performances, commentaries, and anything in between (it was a slightly reduced version of a stage show the Mercury did, called Mercury Wonder Theatre). It was often performed at US Military camps to entertain the troops in the thick of World War II.
However this show found itself in possession of a smaller audience as it was broadcast from the west coast of the US and was not picked up to be carried across the country. As a result only people from California to as far east as Colorado ended up hearing the program and its ratings suffered. Welles was also known to once again clash with sponsors, especially Mobil, who objected to some of Welles choices of guests and offered "helpful" suggestions for sketches and guest cast members. For instance, it was known that when jazz legend Duke Ellington performed on the show that Mobil had suggested he appear in a sketch playing Welles'
servant. Welles was not amused and in part because of these fights the sponsors became more disinterested in the show and eventually it collapsed under the weight of its strife.
However in its time the show was in part responsible for the rise of jazz, especially New Orleans jazz in the 1940s as it featured a house band composed of many of the heavyweights of the jazz scene of the day.
g) Mercury Summer Theatre of the Air (1946)
The last hurrah for the Mercury Theatre was this summer production of 15 weeks in 1946. In spite of bearing the Mercury Theatre name, most of the cast were not Mercury regulars as the theatre company had already disbanded prior to the series' commencement. However over the course of its 3 months on the air, many former Mercury members would show up for guest spots in several shows.
The show was a return to the familiar format of adapting popular plays and stories, though this time in a half-hour time slot. It was sponsored by Pabst Blue Ribbon beer and while it used a similar form to what had made the Mercury Theatre shows popular in the first place, the shorter run time and limitations on what content could be adapted within it meant that it failed to catch on as previous shows had. Finally on September 3rd as the summer drew to a close so did this series, taking with it the last vestiges of the Mercury Theatre and the most significant era of Welles' radio contributions.
Welles would move to Europe the following year, citing dissatisfaction with the US film industry and the inability to properly create the works he wished to while believing there would be more freedom and acceptance in Europe. From here he would make two more radio shows while in Europe before returning to the US in the late 1950s, by which time radio had faded from its position as the dominant public entertainment medium.
www.yahoo.com
) It will take a few seconds to compress the content into the requisite files and begin the download and then *boom* you've got the stuff on your computer. Open the compressed download files with Windows' innate ability to read zip files or with a program like WinZip or WinRAR if you have it and extract it and you will have a folder full of MP3 audio files of all the episodes that were available.
www.winamp.com
