美国国家公共电台 NPR Massive Digitization Effort Is The Latest Plot Twist For Cuban Radio Soap Operas

 

SCOTT SIMON, HOST:

Before television, before the Internet, there were radio soap operas. From the 1930s to the 1950s, Cuba exported more radio serials¹ than any other nation in the Spanish-speaking world. Even Fidel Castro was a fan. After his revolution, Cuban emigres in Miami began to make their own original Spanish-language radio soap operas, better known as radionovelas. Now Tulane University is digitizing a large collection of those programs. Our Gwen Thompkins has more on these Cold War soaps.

SIMON: The Latin American Library at Tulane has some of the earliest written materials ever circulated in the Western Hemisphere. They've got a letter dated 1521 and signed by the Spanish conquistador Hernan Cortes. But some of the oldest stories in the world are here on reel-to-reel tapes. Take, for instance, "Casa Del Dolor," aka the "House Of Pain." In this episode, a politician is trying to seduce² his secretary.

(SOUNDBITE OF RADIO SHOW, "CASA DEL DOLOR")

UNIDENTIFIED ACTOR #1: (As character, through interpreter) You don't know how grateful I am to you.

UNIDENTIFIED ACTOR #2: (As character, through interpreter) Really? Are you saying that from the heart?

UNIDENTIFIED ACTOR #1: (As character, through interpreter) I swear, Mr. Senator, on my parents' memory.

UNIDENTIFIED ACTOR #2: (As character, through interpreter) All right. For the time being, I'll settle for your appreciation³, Consuelito. But I aspire⁴ to have much more.

UNIDENTIFIED ACTOR #1: (As character, through interpreter) Much more?

UNIDENTIFIED ACTOR #2: (As character, through interpreter) I want your affection. You're very valuable to me.

GWEN THOMPKINS, BYLINE⁵: Turns out, Senator Castroviejo is not only trying to bed Consuelito, the sweet secretary with absolutely no common sense. He's got his hands in other wrongdoing, as well. That's the genius of radionovelas - everything's complicated. The sleazebag senator's comeuppance may not happen for weeks, sometimes longer, which keeps audiences tuning⁶ in for more. Ask Ida Schooler. She's been listening to "House Of Pain" for a year.

IDA SCHOOLER: Friends, you know, they're crazy about podcasts. And so they'll tell me, you have to listen to, you know, this podcast, or, you have to listen to this. And they're telling the story. And I think that's kind of like what my job is.

THOMPKINS: Schooler is a 20-something associate archivist at the library who grew up speaking Spanish in Mexico. Her job is to binge more than a thousand hours of 1960s-era must-hear entertainment.

SCHOOLER: Sometimes it's really dated and you kind of groan⁷, and you have to just accept that it is of its time. But then sometimes, it's really timeless and it feels really modern.

THOMPKINS: The Latin American Library is paying Schooler to help catalog its collection, with support from the Council on Library and Information Resources and the Mellon Foundation.

SCHOOLER: So we're trying to find scholars to research them. But my first thought was, oh, these would be great to listen to, like, on a car ride if I'm going on a road trip or if I'm - if I'm learning Spanish.

(SOUNDBITE OF RADIO SHOW, "CASA DEL DOLOR")

UNIDENTIFIED PERSON #1: (Speaking Spanish).

THOMPKINS: From 1963 to 1970, America's Productions Incorporated made "House Of Pain" and more than 130 other Spanish-language serials. Located in the historic Freedom Tower in Miami, the company hired displaced Cuban writers, directors, actors, musicians and engineers. Schooler's piecing together their names and resumes.

SCHOOLER: So all we have right now - and a lot of the information I'm giving you is based on listening to things over and over and over and sort of observing what are sort of the logical conclusions we can draw.

THOMPKINS: Perhaps the best-known actor in the radionovelas was Minin Bujones, the Lucille Ball of Cuba.

(SOUNDBITE OF ARCHIVED RECORDING)

MININ BUJONES: (As character, speaking Spanish).

THOMPKINS: Tulane's massive collection of radionovelas - more than 9,000 reel-to-reel tapes - is named after her and her husband, Louis Boeri, the Italian-born American businessman who founded the company.

Some of the radionovelas were pure propaganda made to counter the ideals of the Cuban Revolution. But the serials for commercial radio were not so dogmatic. "El Agente Secreto," aka "The Secret Agent," was ideological⁸ and thrilling.

(SOUNDBITE OF RADIO SHOW, "EL AGENTE SECRETO")

UNIDENTIFIED ACTOR #3: (As character, speaking Spanish).

UNIDENTIFIED ACTOR #4: (As character, speaking Spanish).

UNIDENTIFIED ACTOR #5: (As character, speaking Spanish).

THOMPKINS: The secret agent is a lot like James Bond. He also works for MI6, but his name is Pond, Richard Pond, agent 009. Schooler knows more.

SCHOOLER: We're in Paris. Carmen, played by Bertha Sandoval (ph), who is the primary love interest for Richard Pond in this storyline - she's been kidnapped. She was taken to a mental institution. A French policeman broke into the institution, and he gets into this very bloody⁹ confrontation¹⁰ with the mad scientist who's about to lobotomize Carmen.

THOMPKINS: The good news is Carmen is not lobotomized. The bad news is she gets amnesia¹¹.

SCHOOLER: And she's come to Chez Carlo, which is a nightclub in which Carlo is looking for a lounge singer.

(SOUNDBITE OF RADIO SHOW, "EL AGENTE SECRETO")

BERTHA SANDOVAL: (As Carmen, through interpreter) I do not know how I got to the door of your establishment or why I opened it and entered this place. That is all, Carlo.

UNIDENTIFIED ACTOR #6: (As Carlo, through interpreter) Cherie. Cherie, you are the angel I've been asking heaven for.

(SOUNDBITE OF SONG, "AUTUMN LEAVES")

SANDOVAL: (As Carmen, singing in Spanish).

THOMPKINS: As Carmen, Bertha Sandoval sings "Autumn Leaves."

(SOUNDBITE OF SONG, "AUTUMN LEAVES")

SANDOVAL: (As Carmen, singing in Spanish).

THOMPKINS: But the library has yet to identify the actor playing Carlo. Company owner Louis Boeri is another mystery. Before the early 1960s, Boeri had never made a radionovela. He was a magazine publisher in Florida. In the final years of the Batista Regime, he took a job with the Cuban government to promote U.S. investment and tourism there. But when Fidel Castro rose to power and partnered with the Soviet¹² Union, Boeri left his home and fortune in Havana and relocated to Miami.

Schooler says his actors had a rare skill.

SCHOOLER: Cubans had developed continental¹³ Spanish, so it'd be the equivalent to, like, the trans-Atlantic accent. So they had figured out a way to alter their voices so that it was not region-specific and it wasn't class-specific.

THOMPKINS: Boeri's family suspects he worked for a U.S. intelligence agency. A daughter, Zenia Robertson (ph), says she remembers him taking a lot of flights to Washington, D.C., back then. That may be why Cold War politics seemed so evident in these radionovelas. The protagonists¹⁴ openly embrace democratic and capitalist ideals. But no one says exactly who or what they're fighting against. Again, Ida Schooler.

SCHOOLER: They don't - it's like they don't want to say communists, and so the big sub-in is always the existentialists. So in multiple series, you'll have, like, it was the kind of bar where, you know, bohemians and students and existentialists hang out. And they talk about Sartre and his philosophy.

THOMPKINS: Picture Jean-Paul Sartre in a fabulous¹⁵ evening dress, and that could be Soledad. In the "House Of Pain," she looks like a fashion model and gets good results.

(SOUNDBITE OF RADIO SHOW, "CASA DEL DOLOR")

UNIDENTIFIED ACTOR #7: (As Antonio Miguel) Soledad.

UNIDENTIFIED ACTOR #8: (As Soledad, through interpreter) What is it, Antonio Miguel?

UNIDENTIFIED ACTOR #7: (As Antonio Miguel, through interpreter) May I ask you to dance?

THOMPKINS: The Latin American Library plans to have the first third of its collection of radionovelas available for online research by December. Then, Ida Schooler will have another 2,300 hours to go. Louis Boeri once said that in his radionovelas, the American way of life shines but without saying so. That's the definition of soft power or, in this case, soap power.

For NPR News, I'm Gwen Thompkins in New Orleans.

(SOUNDBITE OF RY COODER AND MANUEL GALBAN'S "PATRICIA")

1 serials   

n.连载小说，电视连续剧( serial的名词复数 )

参考例句：

• The computer can alter the serials librarian and produce a bindery notice. 计算机可提醒管理连续出版物的馆员，并制作装订通知。 来自辞典例句
• I realized I have started to like a few of their serials. 我意识到我已开始喜欢上了不少他们的连续剧。 来自互联网

2 seduce   

vt.勾引，诱奸，诱惑，引诱

参考例句：

• She has set out to seduce Stephen.她已经开始勾引斯蒂芬了。
• Clever advertising would seduce more people into smoking.巧妙策划的广告会引诱更多的人吸烟。

3 appreciation   

n.评价；欣赏；感谢；领会，理解；价格上涨

参考例句：

• I would like to express my appreciation and thanks to you all.我想对你们所有人表达我的感激和谢意。
• I'll be sending them a donation in appreciation of their help.我将送给他们一笔捐款以感谢他们的帮助。

4 aspire   

vi.(to，after)渴望，追求，有志于

参考例句：

• Living together with you is what I aspire toward in my life.和你一起生活是我一生最大的愿望。
• I aspire to be an innovator not a follower.我迫切希望能变成个开创者而不是跟随者。

5 byline   

n.署名；v.署名

参考例句：

• His byline was absent as well.他的署名也不见了。
• We wish to thank the author of this article which carries no byline.我们要感谢这篇文章的那位没有署名的作者。

6 tuning   

n.调谐，调整，调音v.调音( tune的现在分词 )；调整；（给收音机、电视等）调谐；使协调

参考例句：

• They are tuning up a plane on the flight line. 他们正在机场的飞机跑道上调试一架飞机。 来自《简明英汉词典》
• The orchestra are tuning up. 管弦乐队在定弦。 来自《现代汉英综合大词典》

7 groan   

vi./n.呻吟，抱怨；(发出)呻吟般的声音

参考例句：

• The wounded man uttered a groan.那个受伤的人发出呻吟。
• The people groan under the burden of taxes.人民在重税下痛苦呻吟。

8 ideological   

a.意识形态的

参考例句：

• He always tries to link his study with his ideological problems. 他总是把学习和自己的思想问题联系起来。
• He helped me enormously with advice on how to do ideological work. 他告诉我怎样做思想工作，对我有很大帮助。

9 bloody   

adj.非常的的；流血的；残忍的；adv.很；vt.血染

参考例句：

• He got a bloody nose in the fight.他在打斗中被打得鼻子流血。
• He is a bloody fool.他是一个十足的笨蛋。

10 confrontation   

n.对抗，对峙，冲突

参考例句：

• We can't risk another confrontation with the union.我们不能冒再次同工会对抗的危险。
• After years of confrontation,they finally have achieved a modus vivendi.在对抗很长时间后，他们最后达成安宁生存的非正式协议。

11 amnesia   

n.健忘症，健忘

参考例句：

• People suffering from amnesia don't forget their general knowledge of objects.患健忘症的人不会忘记关于物体的一些基本知识。
• Chinese medicine experts developed a way to treat amnesia using marine materials.中国医学专家研制出用海洋物质治疗遗忘症的方法。

12 Soviet   

adj.苏联的，苏维埃的；n.苏维埃

参考例句：

• Zhukov was a marshal of the former Soviet Union.朱可夫是前苏联的一位元帅。
• Germany began to attack the Soviet Union in 1941.德国在1941年开始进攻苏联。

13 continental   

adj.大陆的，大陆性的，欧洲大陆的

参考例句：

• A continental climate is different from an insular one.大陆性气候不同于岛屿气候。
• The most ancient parts of the continental crust are 4000 million years old.大陆地壳最古老的部分有40亿年历史。

14 protagonists   

n.（戏剧的）主角( protagonist的名词复数 )；（故事的）主人公；现实事件（尤指冲突和争端的）主要参与者；领导者

参考例句：

• Mrs Pankhurst was one of the chief protagonists of women's rights. 潘克赫斯特太太是女权的主要倡导者之一。 来自辞典例句
• This reflects that Feng Menglong heartily sympathized with these protagonists. 这反映出冯梦龙由衷地同情书中的这些主要人物。 来自互联网

15 fabulous   

adj.极好的；极为巨大的；寓言中的，传说中的

参考例句：

• We had a fabulous time at the party.我们在晚会上玩得很痛快。
• This is a fabulous sum of money.这是一笔巨款。