"This American Life" comes to Mainstage
Ira Glass shares with audience the secrets of innovative story telling on the radio

By MARA MCGINNIS
Reporter Assistant Editor

Ira Glass, producer, host and creative force behind the award-winning public-radio show "This American Life," exposed the power of words, the power of innovative story-telling and the power of radio in a performance Monday night that gave his audience an entertaining inside look at how he produces the program.

"Not long ago, I was doing a lot of stories on Chicago gangs and Chicago schools," said Glass, whose familiar voice emerged from a completely dark Center for the Arts Mainstage theater. "I always thought that if average public-radio listeners could actually see, for example, the girl gang-member that I was talking to-baggy clothes, tough looks on her face, black lipstick-that they would somehow distance themselves.

"But when you hear her voice on the radio, it goes straight to your heart," he explains, playing a clip of her voice to demonstrate. "There is an intimacy to just hearing somebody's voice, to the invisibility of radio, like a late-night phone call to somebody you're close to, in the dark."

When the spotlight finally came on, Glass was seated on the open stage at a table with the radio equipment necessary for his performance.

"I think there is a huge territory in this country for radio that is unexplored," Glass told the audience. "I believe that radio has the power to move us and touch us the way that a great book does or a great movie."

He spent the rest of his talk justifying his claim with an array of touching stories, pieces of stories, and stories about stories-all backed by music and lessons he has learned after working in public radio for 20 years.

In his trademark style, Glass shared with the audience what makes an ideal radio story, using such examples as the judgment of strangers in a subway terminal, a man from rural Kentucky who goes to Palm Beach to plan parties for the rich and famous, teen-agers in a public-housing project who dream of a house with a basement, and the garter dance ritual at an inner-city high-school prom.

"This American Life is an experiment," Glass explained. "It is a time to do all of the things that public broadcasting is supposed to do at its most idealistic-that is, bring you a perspective on this country that you cannot get anywhere else."

He demonstrated what he called "the heart of narrative" or how stories can be structured to seem more interesting simply by how they are arranged.

"We are such a primitive species that when we hear a sequence of events, we believe that it is leading somewhere."

Glass revealed secret subliminal tricks such as removing the background music to emphasize certain words in a story and structuring series of events to "create bait" for the listener to raise questions in his or her mind and compel the listener to stick around to find out what is going to happen.

According to Glass, it isn't enough to just tell a little story. "You need to move from the anecdote to something bigger, which makes the whole idea more satisfying," he explained. This "moment of reflection" is an element that he said is often missing in other art forms. His moment of reflection on "This American Life" often is the title or theme of his show, such as one called "There is Something About the Judgment of Strangers."

"Oddly, radio is a peculiarly didactic medium," stated Glass. "People on radio always make their point. Radio simulates very closely what it is like to be in an actual conversation.

"In other art forms, like poetry or drama, no one ever tells you what it is about. No one comes out and says, 'I know it has been confusing up until this point, but here is what it is about. . .'"

Ideal radio stories, Glass said, must have three important effects on listeners: they must be able to relate to the story, they must be surprised by it and they must be able to visualize what is happening.

To demonstrate the power of surprise, he played a clip from a story that covers a high-school prom during which, in utter surprise, Glass witnessed the boys taking their dates' garters off with their teeth during the "garter ceremony."

He then shared segments of a story in which he set out to measure the distance between what a junior-high teacher wants students to get out of a class trip to Washington, D.C., and what students actually get out of it.

Glass explained that what was supposed to be a dramatic, moving moment atop the Lincoln Memorial turned into a disappointment for inner-city school students when their teacher tries to recreate a touching, historical moment by playing the "I Had a Dream" speech by Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr.

The moment, which Glass captures, ends up having the exact opposite effect, since it turns out that the students are more than familiar with this speech, and instead of being "touched" are dismayed to find out it is just the "same old speech."

"Language enters us in a really deep way, a back-door kind of way, a sneaky way. We live in a very odd, cultural moment for narrative. It is rare that you are exposed to narrative in which you feel like 'this could be me,'" which, to Glass, is one of the most important objectives for a radio show.

"Radio of all media, I believe, is peculiarly suited to create this feeling of empathy because you can't see the characters. You can get people's voices across in a way that enters your heart more easily than in print and much easier than on television.

"I'm not a big believer that the work we do on public radio changes much in people's lives. But if the (stories) have any kind of contribution at all, I believe it is that it gives listeners the opportunity for empathy, to cross that line and feel less crazy."