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Orson Welles' seminal work as a filmmaker is well-known, but few realize that he was just as
accomplished in the world of radio theatre as he was in filmmaking. Theatre of the Imagination, an entertaining and detailed new CD-ROM by the Voyager Company, explores Welles' achievements during the 'golden age of radio' of the 1930s and'40s, revealing the ways in which his genius transformed radio forever. Theatre of the Imagination contains over five hours worth of Welles' original radio broadcasts, which range from his cackling antics as pulp fiction hero "The Shadow" to broadcasts on classics like A Tale of Two Cities and Hamlet. The only notable absence is Welles' War of the Worlds broadcast, famous for
the widespread panic it caused when the listening public thought the descriptions of invading martians were real and actually occurring. The producers of the disc do explain this somewhat by noting they sought to restore more of his obscure or hard-to-find work, but it would have been a nice addition nonetheless. The supplementary material is quite exhaustive, replete with program notes, transcripts, articles on Welles, interviews, and even a 40-minute documentary narrated by Entertainment Tonight film critic Leonard Maltin. Highlights include a recording of the first and only on-air interview between Orson Welles and War of the Worlds author H.G. Wells (though it makes the absence of the War broadcast all the more glaring), as well as an amusing 1938 movie about radio sound effects called Back of the Mike. War of the Worlds' absence aside, this a detailed and entertaining disc. If you have any interest at all in the work of Orson Welles or radio theatre, then you should pick up Theatre of the Imagination immediately. |
