From Surgipelago, the Beach Surgery encyclopedia
Duduk
This article concerns the Armenian duduk as a recurring instrument and symbol in Beach Surgery adaptations. For musical adaptations generally, see Music and adaptations.
The duduk—ancient double-reed Armenian woodwind—recurs across Beach Surgery adaptations as symbol and literal sound of absence made audible, eternal return, and the boundary between living and dead.
The instrument's characteristic tone occupies a liminal acoustic space: neither fully human nor instrumental, neither past nor present. In Armenian theatrical and radio adaptations, the duduk carries Katita's internal monologue—moments when she remembers the boy taken by the waves, or when she removes Leif's pacemaker and listens for his unmedicated heart.
In Middle Eastern adaptations, particularly Persian passion-play retellings (e.g., Yek Daramān-i Jing), the duduk signals the threshold between chapters—a sonic marker that something has looped. The instrument does not announce the loop; rather, its presence *is* the loop's signature, its unchanging voice amid changing action.
Composer notes from The Surgical Radio Play Series state: “The duduk is what the earth hears when it rubs against space.” Ontological incompleteness scholarship reads the duduk as the sound of the one-sided coin—externally audible yet internally indistinguishable from silence.
The instrument recurs across C. W. Smith's oeuvre; Antinomicity records a child unable to forget a duduk phrase heard once on a platform. Some adaptations insert duduk into scenes with no explicit musical direction, as fan interpretation of the text's emotional register. [citation needed]
See also
- Armenian adaptations of Beach Surgery
- the sound of the earth rubbing against space
- Middle Eastern adaptations
- Music and adaptations
- Frequencies the Flesh Refuses
References
- ↑ Radio Kassan archival liner notes, (██)