Theatre of the Imagination
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The Voyager Company

Reference

Ratings:

4 stars from HomePC

3 1/2 stars from CD-ROM Today

Radio stories by Orson Welles and The Mercury Theatre

Recorded in the late '30s and early '40s, these fifteen spellbinding shows reveal all the ways in which Orson Welles's genius transformed radio forever. It was the perfect medium for his prodigious talents; in the words of Richard Wilson, a member of the famed Mercury Theatre Company which performed Welles's work on CBS Radio, "Orson knew radio knew no boundaries. It was a theatre of the imagination."

Whether performing in Heart of Darkness, spoofing Noah Webster, reciting the poetry of John Donne, or cackling madly as the Shadow, Orson Welles knew just how to ignite the imagination of his audience. Happily abandoning the conventions of the stage, the maverick director (and actor and producer and writer and all-around theatrical genius) brought to radio a whole new way of telling a story. Some of the shows feature a solo Welles (Hamlet, Song of Solomon), but most are ensemble pieces, a style of radio drama he pioneered and perfected. Hour-long classics (Rebecca, A Tale of Two Cities) are interspersed with well-chosen excepts and interesting snippets, and are supplemented by program notes, transcripts, articles on Welles, a forty-minute documentary on the Mercury Theatre Company and delightful miscellany like a wonderful 1938 movie about radio sound effects called Back of the Mike.

A supremely entertaining earful, Theatre of the Imagination vividly documents the effect of Orson Welles's larger-than-life personality and talent on the golden age of radio.

Requirements: Windows - 486SX-33 or higher processor; 640x480, 256-color display (accelerator recommended); 8 Mbytes RAM; MPC2-compatible CD-ROM drive and sound card with speakers or headphones; Microsoft Windows 3.1.

Requirements: Macintosh - Any color Macintosh (25-MHZ 68030 or better recommended); System 7; 13" (640x480 resolution) or larger display; at least 8 Mbytes RAM (5,000K free); double-speed CD- ROM drive.

Reviews:

HomePC, February 1996

"Theatre of the Imagination features 15 radio programs performed by Orson Welles' Mercury Theatre troupe. The shows first aired more than a half-century ago, and the CD-ROM joyfully reacquaints us with the early work of the man who would go on to direct Citizen Kane, which many still consider the greatest American film ever made. The performances here include classic readings of Sharkespeare, Dickens and the Bible; original episodes of the radio drama The Shadow; and comedies such as 'Heart of Darkness,' a spoof of Noah Webster reciting the poetry of John Donne."

"All are richly supplemented with the complete scripts and articles about Welles by his contemporaries - including his Mercury Theatre partner John Houseman - and a 40-minute audio documentary about the Theatre itself. One especially entertaining add-on here is 'Back of the Mike,' a 1938 short subject that explores radio sound effects."

CD-ROM Today, March 1996

Theatre of the Imagination is a lavish homage to Orson Welles and the Mercury Theater players, a repertory company that took radio drama to heights it had never known before and has rarely achieved since."

"The visual material includes an absolute hoot of a documentary showing how the productions were actually staged (you will not believe the frenzied activity of the sound effects crew; remember, all this was being broadcast live)."

"The one downside to Theatre of the Imagination is the unbelievable trouble I had trying to install it...Still, the fine content made it worth the pain."

Computer Shopper, March 1996

"It's not often that you're advised to sit back and close your eyes to enjoy a multimedia CD-ROM. But that's precisely the case with the Voyager Co.'s Theatre of the Imagination, which takes you back to the golden age of radio via the genius of Orson Welles."

"...this CD-ROM is almost exclusively in the realm of audio. There are no revolutions to be fought across your computer screen - at least not with your keyboard or joystick. They are there for your mind to imagine. Perhaps Welles summed it up best: 'We have no curtains, real or imaginary...There's only one illusiton I'd like to create: the illusion of the story.'"

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