The Sound Inside
★★★☆☆ Wordy
Traverse (Venue 15): Sun 28 Jul – Sun 25 Aug 2024
Review by Hugh Simpson
The Sound Inside by Adam Rapp, from Cusack Projects Ltd and Half Moon Street Ltd in association with Traverse Theatre Company, comes from America garlanded with praise. While much of that praise is justified, it is also a production that exasperates as much as it impresses.
Bella Lee Baird (played by Madeleine Potter) is a Yale creative writing professor in her fifties, dealing with cancer and disappointed in her own career as a novelist. Into her class walks the driven but socially awkward Christopher (Eric Sirakian). The two of them instinctively recognise something in each other’s situation as outsiders; even if this isn’t going to go where you think it might, it seems clear it isn’t going to end well.
Madeleine Potter and Eric Sirakian in The Sound Inside. Pic: Mihaela Bodlovic
The US production was nominated for six Tony Awards, including Best Play. It is certainly a precise, unsentimental work whose flinty dialogue expresses its difficult themes delicately, and which moves from such dialogue to narration with commendable ease. The fact that he doesn’t go in any of the expected directions is a definite point in Rapp’s favour.
However, a more cynical view might be that it is one of those worthy, wordy plays that often appeal to prize juries. It is also seems preoccupied with the making of literature. The business of writing is something that is notoriously of more interest to writers (and critics) than it is to audiences. Stranger yet, despite a throwaway remark to the effect that making plays can be harder, there seems no doubt that the characters consider that writing extended prose to be the highest possible calling.
Lists of famous novelists, their techniques and their various sticky ends, furthermore, can easily be seen as an attempt to add intellectual gloss through allusion. Either way, it comes across as doomy and portentous.
unafraid of stillness
Oddest of all, such a self-consciously literate play is strongest when nothing happens. Some of the most telling moments are when Potter’s flow of words stop and she says nothing at all. Both Potter and director Matt Wilkinson are clearly unafraid of stillness, and this comes across to great effect.
Potter’s performance is certainly an exceptionally fine one. Sirakian’s character is less finely drawn, but he is also impressive. One of the most impressive things about Rapp’s writing here is that the characters are not judged, and their motives are not necessarily any clearer at the end than they were at the start, with no attempts at easy resolutions or solutions.
Such restraint is echoed by other elements of the production; James Turner’s design often stretches to little more than two chairs on a bare stage, Eliot Griggs’s lighting is oppressively stark, and Gareth Fry’s sound design carries on the austere feel.
There is a lot to admire about this production; however, it is very difficult to love, despite (or because of) featuring two characters who set such store by loving books – to the extent that one says reading a book is like committing adultery.
This is definitely not for everyone, and certainly not for anyone who wants a cheery watch, but it certainly has its own rewards.
Running time: One hour 30 minutes (no interval)
Traverse Theatre (Traverse 1), 10 Cambridge St, EH1 2ED (Venue 15)
Sunday 28 July – Sunday 25 August 2024
Various times (see website for details)
Details and tickets: Book here.
Traverse website: Further details.
Artist website: www.matt-wilkinson.co.uk
Madeleine Potter in The Sound Inside. Pic: Mihaela Bodlovic
ENDS
