You Are There is a
wonderful CBS radio drama that ran between 1947 and 1950 and therefore within
the last decade or so of radio drama’s ascendancy in the US. The premise itself is hardly revolutionary
now, and even at the time I think it’s fair to say it was pre-empted by the
work of Georges Colin in France, who in 1928 recreated crowd scenes on radio to
give the listener the illusion that he or she was “there” at Charlotte Corday’s
and Danton’s trials during Revolutionary France. (Tribute
to History on France Inter in the 1950s followed You Are There’s journalistic format a bit more closely.) The format is also not dissimilar from The March of Time, another CBS program
running variously between 1931 and 1945.
However, in a prevailing attitude (even postwar) in which
the voices of radio journalists such as Edward R. Murrow stood for truth and
had a certain cachet of standing for something, You Are There’s foundation and production really take the genre to
the absolute peak of its form. Even on
TV I don’t think you could achieve something along the lines of what You Are There did in the 1948 episode I
heard, The Surrender of Sitting
Bull. Now, in case it isn’t evident,
You Are There supposes that a CBS
radio journalism team has gone back in time to key events in history (American
“canonical” history is favored, but other times and places are occasionally
highlighted). In John Dunning’s words,
“Real-life newsmen with established reputations handled ‘remote’ broadcasts
while anchorman Don Hollenbeck organized field reports and summarized the
unfolding drama.” There, is of course, a
mindset into which you have to put yourself, but as I love a) radio that blurs
the lines between fiction and fact; b) stories of observing history, it’s not
difficult for me to achieve this.
Anyone who has seen Horrible
Histories in the UK will be somewhat familiar with the kind of “historical
journalism” involved here, though imagining it through radio makes it much more
immediate than I think could ever be achieved on TV. As well, even though following battles on
radio drama is sometimes confusing and problematic, this actually enhances the
journalistic flavor of You Are There and
results in something so exciting—at least the in the episode I heard—that I was
literally on the edge of my seat. Think Blair
Witch Project but for radio, and in a more mediated environment.
There were some superb choices in The Surrender of Sitting Bull, which saw the You Are There team in 1881 Dakota Territory. Anyone with only the most basic understanding
of the “Indian Wars” of the 19th century would be able to follow the
summarized situation as described by John Daly.
Some five years after Gen. Custer’s ignominious (to him, anyway) defeat
at Little Big Horn, the Lakota Sioux Chief known as Sitting Bull (Tȟatȟaŋka Iyotȟaŋka)
and his people have returned from a Canadian sojourn, perhaps amassing Lakota
Sioux for another stand against the white settlers/US governmental troops. The atmosphere is tense. I was very much struck by the people “chosen”
to be interviewed on location. The US
army representatives, such as Major Brotherton, caught as they are presumably
milling about camp, are fully committed to the cause of manifest destiny: they want the Indians to become farmers,
Christians, be educated in white schools, all for their own good.
Sitting Bull himself is not interviewed, which at first I
thought was a bit strange—however, in some senses it actually is quite
shrewd—after all, as is pointed out, he did not speak English, whereas one of
the CBS correspondents, translates the Lakota (whether this is a complete
fabrication for the purposes of the narrative doesn’t really bother me; it’s
impressive that the American public listening to this in 1948 would have
presumably no problem believing that a white radio correspondent could
translate Lakota with such rapidity as demonstrated here). Even if Sitting Bull isn’t interviewed
directly, Ken Roberts does speak to Jean-Louis LeGars, a French-Canadian who
has transported Sitting Bull and his family from Canada, and whose views are
decidedly at odds with those of the U.S. government. Even if it takes a Frenchman (with a terrible
accent, it’s true) to speak for the native Sioux, it’s significant that LeGars
is incredibly articulate and ties Major Brotherton’s army rhetoric into
knots.
You Are There’s
“team” must, I’m sure, hold itself to their own standards of journalistic
impartiality and fairness, and as such they interview, as well, Major
McLaughlin, the Indian agent, though his obvious recalcitrance and xenophobia
are highlighted in an extremely sarcastic manner by Hollenbeck. This also gives the opportunity for Chief
Gall, a “brave” to “speak” his own story—in the form of a song “translated” by
Hollenbeck. (I was impressed at the end
to hear that this song is a documentary recording by Sitting Bull’s grandson
Chief Crazy Bull who was historical adviser to the production.)
Although not interviewed, Sitting Bull does “speak” in You Are There, translated and filtered
through the CBS correspondents. At the
beginning of the story, Daly did say it was “one of the most shameful episodes
in American history,” and the play goes a long way in expressing an observer’s
shock when Brotherton basically deceives, betrays, and lies in order to
disband, humiliate, and round up Sitting Bull and his people, who have acted
honorably and transparently. Hollenbeck
gives us a glimpse of Sitting Bull’s “ironic smile” before You Are There crashes to a halt.
The abrupt ending probably says as much about how shameful this event
really was perceived than any amount of opinion or moralizing. It’s often said that fiction is a good way of
presenting facts and trying to change events by doing so; You Are There nicely bridges this gap and achieves this goal.
At half an hour long, without commercial interruption, You Are There is just about the right
length. Robert Louis Shayon is the
writer and producer of You Are There, and
I very much look forward to hearing more of his unique and entertaining series,
surely a radio landmark of form.
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