Swan Song

Synopsis: Radio drama. An adaptation, by Michael Frayn, of Anton Chekhov’s one-act play. An elderly actor, having given his final and benefit performance, falls asleep drunk in the theatre. He wakes up, still in his clown costume, and reflects with his prompter about his life on the stage. He dwells on loneliness and death and questions the value of what he has achieved. He has always played the fool or clown and wishes he had acted in grander roles. He recites from Shakespeare those lines from the tragedies which relate to his own situation. He recites King Lear ‘Blow winds and crack your cheeks!' (III ii). The Prompter reads the Fool’s part; the relationship between Actor and Prompter mirroring Lear and his Fool; Hamlet ‘O, the recorders. Let me see one’. (III ii) and Othello ‘O now for ever/Farewell the Tranquil mind, farewell content!' (III iii). In this production the words ‘Othello’s occupation gone’ are the last words spoken in the play before the director’s credit is announced. The line is then repeated before other production credits are read out.
Language: English
Country: Great Britain
Medium: Radio
Transmission details: 12 Mar 2006 at 18:30 (Channel: BBC Radio 3)
Duration: 20 mins

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British Universities Film & Video Council