Reviews 2013
Reviews 2013
✭✭✭✭✩
by Linda A. Carson & Cathy Nosaty, directed by Pablo Felices-Luna
Carousel Players, Young People’s Theatre, Toronto
February 5-21, 2013
“Fun with Music and Noise”
“Wow, that was really cool!” the seven-year-old boy sitting in front of me exclaimed when Here to Hear was over. And he was right. Playwright Linda A. Carson and sound designer Cathy Nosaty have created a wonderful interactive show for children aged four and above that will make them interested in music, both classical and pop, interested in sound and interested in theatre – all in only 50 minutes. The kindergarten and Grade 1 students who entered the theatre to see the noon-time show seemed a bit sleepy when they arrived, but they became fully involved in the action as soon as it started and when it was over they were clearly energized by it and couldn’t wait to tell each other the things they thought were so neat about it.
Before the action proper begins, we hear a recording of Giazotto’s arrangement of Albinoni’s Adagio in G minor playing through the speakers on stage. In contrast to the mournful music, actor Amy Lee as “Amanda” makes her way around the audience with a hand-held digital recorder encouraging children to laugh or make funny sounds that she would then play back to them. Gradually segueing into the play, she tells us that she is making a special recording for her father’s birthday and would like us to be part of it. She then divides the audience into three groups and gives each its own particular sound to make – directing us like a conductor and recording our sounds. She then uses a beat machine to set up a hip-hop beat that gets all the kids dancing in their seats. Over this she plays the loop of this sequence of sounds we made. On top of this she divides the audience into two groups – one to call out “Ha-ha-happy” and the other “Day”.
The play itself only begins when actor Stephen Gallagher, playing Amanda’s father Len, strides out from behind a small red-curtained stage to complain about all the “noise” Amanda is making. This becomes a direct insult to us because we have helped Amanda make this “noise”. She retorts that what she is playing is music. Nevertheless, as Len’s sound technician, she readies herself for the recital he is going to present. Len, in white tie and tails, will sing his favourite music which is opera. First up, is “La donna è mobile” from Rigoletto sung in Italian. Next is “Toréador, en garde!” from Carmen. This, Len claims, is real music because it has real melody. As Len prepares to sing “M’appari” from Flotow’s Martha, Amanda, her father’s sound engineer, keeps accidentally switching on the sound collage she made at the top of the show.
In the midst of Len and Amanda’s debate about what is “music” and what is “noise”, one of the speakers starts to malfunction by making a high birdlike twitter. Soon it transpires this is not a malfunction. The twitter leaps from one of the four speakers in the theatre to the next. Len and Amanda vow to capture the being what finally manifests itself as a glowing red light that can expand and diminish. A wild chase ensues around the stage. Eventually we find that that the light, named Sparky, likes best is music, and Len, Amanda and the audience are singing scales and singing in harmony.
The best aspect of Here to Hear is that it seeks to stimulate thinking about the questions it raises without ever trying to preach or suggest that there is a right answer to these questions. What is the difference between noise and music? Can you have “music” without melody as in Amanda’s sound collage? The character of Sparky helps the audience to visualize sound. Len and Amanda’s comic attempt to capture it basically provide a physical analogue to the process of composition that we see in Amanda or in performing that we see in Len. After their arguments it may seem that Len and Amanda reconcile a bit too rapidly. The authors suggest a strict Amanda=rhythm versus Len=melody divide, but given the particular arias Len chose, it would have been useful if Amanda had noted how strong the rhythm is in them. Amanda’s technological abilities with looping and altering sounds are highlighted, but the authors have Len make the excellent point that the human voice is an instrument we all have with us wherever we go. Indeed, the father and daughter join forces in singing Brahms’s lullaby to help put Sparky to sleep.
Amy Lee gives Amanda a delightfully spunky personality with a trace of stubbornness that links her to her father. Stephen Gallagher, best known for musical comedy, does a fine job of singing opera. His gives Len an air of pretension that sets up laughter at all his expertly performed physical comedy. His mime of being drawn around the stage by the little spark in his hands is priceless.
Director Pablo Felices-Luna has beautifully co-ordinated the interaction of Lee and Gallagher with clever sound design of Cathy Nosaty and with the inventive projection design of Gavin Fearon. Felices-Luna frequently has Gallagher go behind his small formal stage when he is lit from behind to create a silhouette that tries to capture Sparky. There is no credit for a consulting magician, even though many of the effect used in the shop have the effect of magic, what with a top hat and a scarf that can move on their own.
Here to Hear is a wonderfully imaginative show that is a treat for both eyes and ears. I can easily imagine the lucky children who attend the show paying more attention afterwards to music, rhythm and the everyday sounds they hear all around them. In fact, I heard one of the children humming “M’appari” to himself as he left the theatre. The show celebrate music not just as a skill but as a means of creative expression. Here to Hear was created by the Carousel Players, a professional children’s theatre group, based in St. Catherines. I look forward to seeing – and hearing – more of their work.
©Christopher Hoile
Note: This review is a Stage Door exclusive.
Photo: Amy Lee and Stephen Gallagher. ©2013 Carousel Players.
For tickets, visit http://youngpeoplestheatre.ca.
2013-02-06
Here to Hear