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About
War as Crime
Avatar
is the nom de guerre of an intellectual in a breakaway republic
of the former Yugoslavia. His best friend, Radek, is a career
soldier. Both belong to opposing ethnic groups, formerly living
in peace, now at war, civil war. Radek is involved in ethnic cleansing
operations against Avatar's ethnic group. Avatar and his younger
sister Vila, in hiding, witness the forcible evacuation of their
parents from their village. Vila runs to plead with Radek to spare
their parents, but Radek lets his soldiers rape Vila, then executes
her. Avatar is too late to prevent the murder, but stays in hiding
and slips away. That night, he takes bloody revenge on Radek.
Filled with hatred and an unquenchable desire for revenge, Avatar
turns into a long-range sniper, dressing up as one of the opposing
army's "cowboys." He speaks their language and pretends
he is killing innocent people of his own ethnic group. In reality,
his many victims are the sniper "cowboys." His decption
is never discovered. One day he kills his fiftieth "sniper,"
but his victim is a Canadian peacekeeper who dressed like one
of the "cowboys." Overcome with remorse and self-loathing,
Avatar surrenders to British peacekeepers and demands to be turned
over to the International War Crimes Tribunal in The Hague as
a self-confessed war criminal. The story takes place in the court
room in a series of flashbacks. The tension mounts as Avatar tells
the judges about his villages, their old peaceful lifestyle, how
former neighbours turned against one another, and how ethnic hatred
corrupted everyone. He demands the death sentence, but, as tells
the judges, "this is not what you people do." There
is a shocking and unexpected ending to this tragedy of guilt and
atonement. The monodrama contains many descriptive and realistic
sound effects and a haunting, recurring theme by a viola, especially
composed for this audio drama.
About
the author/audio artist, Jurgen Hesse
Jurgen
Hesse is an old hand at telling stories and concocting dramatic
sound effects. He worked for the national CBC Radio network from
1961 to 1985, producing hundreds of radio documentaries and stereo
features, receiving an ACTRA Award for best writing in 1982, and
the U.S. Wilbur Award for best religious program in 1983. He then
turned to writing books, seeing two dozen published, ranging from
fiction, to concrete poetry, to artists' books, and to non-fiction.
In 2000, after publishing War as Crime in print form, and seeing
many sold, he decided to turn the monodrama script into an audio-CD.
Most of his CBC Radio programs were produced by his collaborator,
CBC Radio drama and arts producer Don Mowatt. The duo teamed up
again for this CD.
About
the producer/director, Don Mowatt:
Don
Mowatt was for 34 years a radio drama and features producer at
CBC Vancouver. During that time he produced more than 500 plays
and feature documentaries winning two Peabody medals and awards
from ACTRA, Gabriel, Wilbur, B'nai Brith, Armstrong, the NY Audio
Arts Festival and others. In 1993 he was chairman of the jury
for the Prix Futura - Documetaries division in Berlin. He has
been a lecturer in the creative writing, film and theatre department
at the University of British Columbia since 1997, and co-artistic
director of Western Gold Theatre company since 1998. He is also
a prominent playwright, director, actor, and musician in the Scandinavian
community on the West Coast.
About
the actor, Ron Halder:
Ron
Halder, who performs the monodrama War as Crime, has performed
in theatres across Canada from Victoria to Charlottetown. He worked
for two seasons at Bard on the Beach. He has toured Canada, the
United States, Belfast, and South Africa with bassoonist George
Zuckerman in a show called The Great Mozart Hunt in which he plays
nine characters. Ron has also appeared as Cronos in Stargate SG1
and guest starred in Highlander, Millennium and Hope Island as
well as roles in X-files, Dead Man's Gun and Outer Limits. He
is currently busy doing voicework in cartoons and the occasional
reading for CBC Radio.
About
the tenor, Yetvart Hosepyan:
Yetvart
Hosepyan is a member of the Vancouver-based Vivaldi chamber choir.
His lyrical tenor is well-suited for the two songs he performs
in War as Crime: first the mediæval ditty O du lieber Augustin,
performed by a wandering minstrel to the survivors of villages
where the plague decimated the population, to cheer them up. His
second performance is an a cappella Lament for the Dead of the
Armenian Orthodox Church.
A
note on the technical genesis of the audio-CD War as Crime:
From
the beginning the audio artist (Jurgen Hesse) intended to use
a stand-alone sound montage to introduce the audio-CD. The ensuing
story is told in a series of fast-changing sound effects, musical
chords and drums that segues into the courtroom atmosphere (recorded
in a small Catholic church just before for service began). This
5.45-minute sequence is highly dramatic and sets the tone for
the entire CD. The eight segments are separated by stand-alone
sound montages or viola interludes.
The
voice track, many of the sound effects, and most of the music
tracks on this CD were recorded on a mini-disc recorder in digital
format, using a professional one-point stereo microphone. All
recorded sounds were mixed and edited on a high-speed computer,
using a leading digital audio-editing program. Most sound effects
came from Jurgen Hesse's and Don Mowatt's extensive sound archives;
they were digitally remastered from the original reel-to-reel
analog format. The actor, Ron Halder, was recorded in the Roman
Catholic Good Shepherd Church in South Surrey, B.C., selected
because of its outstanding acoustic quality.
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