Abstracts
Abstract
This essay explores Tom Stoppard’s 2013 radio play Darkside, which incorporates elements of Pink Floyd’s 1973 album TheDark Side of the Moon, and dramatizes a series of thought experiments. I show how the combination of these three forms necessitates a rethinking of how sounds operate in radio drama, chart the play’s habits of diversion and evasion, and discuss how these tendencies are brought to bear on the central theme of climate change. At the heart of this essay is a proposal that the idea of the “sound of thought” embodied in Darkside may prompt a new approach to the theory of radio, one that begins not with what sounds mean, but with how sounds “think”.
Keywords:
- Tom Stoppard,
- Thought Experiments,
- Concept Albums,
- Radio Drama,
- Climate Change
Résumé
Cet article porte sur la pièce radiophonique Darkside écrite par Tom Stoppard en 2013, laquelle intègre des éléments de l’album TheDark Side of the Moon (1973) du groupe rock Pink Floyd et met en scène une série d’expériences de pensée. Mon but est de montrer comment la réunion de ces différents éléments nous force à réfléchir sur le travail et l’usage du son dans le théâtre radiophonique, et en particulier à la façon dont il articule ici le thème central des changements climatiques. Poussant cette réflexion plus avant, on trouvera ici en creux une hypothèse plus générale selon laquelle l’idée même du “son de la pensée”, telle qu’elle se manifeste dans Darkside, conduirait à développer une nouvelle approche du médium radiophonique, et dont le point de départ ne serait pas de s’interroger sur ce que signifient les sons, mais sur comment ils “pensent”.
Mots-clés :
- Tom Stoppard,
- expérience de pensée,
- albums-concept,
- théâtre radiophonique,
- changements climatiques
Appendices
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