Page 137 [137]
OCR
MÁRTON MESTERHÁZI experiments meant more than the sound stage between two (or four) speakers. They required discipline in the studio, and carefulness in the technical room: no chance of unwelcome sputters, no chance of slovenly “holes.” And “noises” became sound effects. A “noise” is a nearly superfluous must: it slowly fades in, is modestly present, then slowly fades out. A sound effect has meaning: with a sudden, steep fade-in, an intense presence, and a quick fade-out, for example: “Mrs Rooney: Heavens, here comes Connolly’s van! (She halts. Sound of motor-van. It approaches, passes with thunderous rattles, recedes.) Are you all right, Mr Tyler? (Pause.) Where is he?”!° Beckett evidently encourages us to use sound effects, not “noises”; I could just as well quote the scene of the “up mail” and the “down train.” In the early seventies (when Jifi Horci¢ka held a modest job in the tape library of Prague Radio), Gabor was removed, to be promoted to a higher executive position. The new Head of Drama, Otté Lékay, was one of us:”° he gave permission, even encouragement, for us to get rid of the “noises” in All That Fall, and use our own sound effects. Which we did. And that is the — happy — end of the story. BIBLIOGRAPHY BECKETT, Samuel: Collected Shorter Plays, London, Faber and Faber, 1984. MESTERHAZI, Marton: Introduction to All That Fall on Hungarian Radio News, 11 January 1968. Beckett: Collected Shorter Plays, 15. 20 Ottö Lekay: The Head of Drama 1971-1985, who was, like us, a script editor, not a party functionary. « 136 +
