sagemære

This Hoerspiel (audioplay, c. 45 min) is the final project of my Spring 2009 Senior Seminar on Germanic heroic epic. The script is based on a draft by Geoff Poss. ACHTUNG: This is the *uncensored* version; there is some obscenity in Episode 4. A censored version will follow soon. Below are the episodes & roles. Next month when I get more bytes I'll also upload each episode individually.

Epic Failure framing narrative


Episode 1. Siegfried and the Dragon


Episode 2. The Valkyrie

Episode 3. The Potion

Episode 4. The Plan

Siegfried: Chandler Coats
Gunther: Clint Smith
Hagen: Eric Gordon
Writers: Alexa Kourafas, Jessica Letaw, Lauren Edson, Clint Smith
Music: Bernard de Ventadorn, "quan vei la lauzeta mover"

Production & sound: Alexander Sager

Below are two clusters of radio plays. The first, in German, are based on Hartmann von Aue's Iwein and were written and performed by the students (mostly college juniors and seniors) in a course devoted to medieval German Arthurian romance. The second batch, in English, were the work of the students in my freshman seminar "Liebestod und Untergang: Narratives of Passion and Catastrophe in the German Middle Ages".

Casts, roles, and music are identified along with each piece. If you wish to comment, you may use the comment fields or send me an email (asager@uga.edu), which I will pass along to the students. Enjoy!

Alexander Sager

These radio plays are based on the late 12th century Arthurian romance Iwein by the poet Hartmann von Aue. Iwein is a young knight from Arthur's court whose knightly prowess earns, then costs, then finally--after a long period of trial, adventure, and self-improvement--regains him the love of his lady.

Let me briefly describe the project behind these plays. After we read and discussed Iwein in class, each student had the task of inventing an idea for an "episode" that might plausibly fit into the second half of Hartmann's story (i.e, the trial and self-improvement phase). I imposed two further requirements. First, the episode had to show the hero dealing both concretely and symbolically with challenges arising from his crisis and fall (Iwein is so obsessed with his knightly honor that he neglects his wife and kingdom to stay out on the tournament circuit past the deadline appointed for his return. His wife then breaks with him, whereupon he goes mad and lives in the forest like an animal, forgetting who he is. After he recovers he rescues a lion, who becomes his sidekick, then undertakes a series of altruistic adventures with the distant hope of returning to his wife and kingdom one day). Secondly, the episode had to contain an interesting storyteller character as well as an additional figure on the narrator-level, an allegorical persona or a member of the audience. Both of these criteria are based closely on the medieval text. Apart from these requirements, the students had creative freedom.

Each student read the episode-draft of every other student (anonymously!). We discussed them in class, selected three, and divided into three groups of four/five students. The groups fleshed out the scripts, practiced their parts, rehearsed, and recorded in my office. After the initial sessions we worked on sound effects and fight scenes, and I added some guitar music as a finishing touch.

Further down you will find (within a couple of weeks; 1.12.08) comments on the technology, recording process, and sound effects. For colleagues wishing to know more about the details of the assigment set-up, I will also have a longer post on this after a few weeks (1.12.08).

Enjoy!

Alexander Sager

Original idea:
Chandler Coats

Further ideas:
Alexa Kourafas and Emily Mixson

Cast in order of appearance:
Narrator: Alexa Kourafas
Iwein: Chandler Coats
Imagina: Lily Ryan
Lady Adventure: Emily Mixson
Monster: Lily Ryan
Lunete: Emily Mixson

Music:
Framing music by me, borrowing at times shamelessly from Renaissance lutenist Francesco de Milano (here esp. Ricercare #57). The music in Imagina's castle is "Lachrimae" by John Dowland, played by Jakob Lindberg.

Original idea:
Emily Gauld

Cast in order of appearance:
Narrator: Emily Gauld
Iwein: Eric Gordon
Felourde: Laura Hagele
Felourde's husband: Sarah Knapp
Cyclops: Eric Gordon

Music:
Me again, still riffing off Milano's Ricercare #57 (though less obviously now) at the very beginning and end.

Script:
Original idea: Michael Floyd
Writing/editing: Michael Floyd, Kristin Hicks, & contributions by all

Cast in order of appearance:
Narrator: Kristin Gatter
Iwein: Michael Floyd
Wife of the Vainglorious Knight: Kristin Gatter
Lady of the Wife of the Vanglorious Knight: Kristen Hicks
Lady Love: Kristen Hicks
Lord Ruhm (Ruhm = glory or reputation): Geoffrey Poss
Vainglorious Knight: Clint Smith

Music:
This time I'm reworking passages from a Milano fantasia in A.

The Lovedeath Ladies and Downfall Girls (in German I would simply say Liebestodunduntergangsmaedels) would like to present to you their radio plays based on Gottfried von Strassburg's 13th century romance Tristan, one of the classic tales of tragic love.

For this assignment the students, working in small groups, were to invent, script, and record a short episode that could plausibly fit into the latter part of Gottfried's romance, where the lovers Tristan and Isolde use their superior mental skills to outwit Isolde's husband King Marke and his court for to arrange (or in one case cover up) a clandestine tryst.

Script:
Christine Bennett
Hannah Byars
Melissa Mattee

Cast:
Narrator: Hannah Byars
Isolde: Melissa Mattee
Tristan: Melissa Mattee
Brangane: Hannah Byars
Melot: Hannah Byars
Marke: Alexander Sager

Music:
John Dowland, "Mrs Vaux Jig" (Jakob Lindberg); Juan del Encina, "Hoy comamos y bebemos" (Accentus Ensemble); John Dowland, "Sir John Smith, His Almain" (Jakob Lindberg).

Script:
Elizabeth Boyd

Cast:
Narrator: Caroline Franks
Isolde: Celeste Ann Adkins
Brangane: Annie Jung
Tristan: Elizabeth Boyd
Marke: Branson Simmons
Melot: Elizabeth Boyd

Music:
Josquin Baston, "Naelden, Naelden"; Carolus Souliaert, "Allemande IV-III-IV" (Convivium Musicum Gothenburgense).

Script:
Abby Barnes and Leigh Sullivan (idea)
Serena Premjee (writing)

Cast:
Narrator: Abby Barnes
Marjadoc: Kris Magpantay
Marke: Abby Barnes
Tristan: Serena Premjee

Music:
"Lamento di Tristano" (Ensemble Villanella); Guillaume de Machaut, Gloria from the Missa de Nostre Dame (Oxford Camerata); Saltarello (c.1300)(arranged Sven Berger)(Joculatores Upsalienses).