One of my other roles within the company is sound designer, and having an insight into the visual aesthetics of the piece has given me the ability to produce music and sounds to match it.
The scene transitions back into The Man’s interludes were overlaid with very similar, Jazz-esq, short tracks which were used to bring the audience back into the world of The Man and his orchid. The tracks progressed with the piece, the first introduced the sound of water (bringing in nature and hinting towards The Man’s dream of cycling round a lake with his wife), a child is heard crying after the memory scene and the final one is more erratic (due to the sadistic gameshow that preceded) but then comes back to the sound of water to suggest the cycle is making full circle.
The interludes had the only track with lyrics in it, which was to further the design choice of separating The Man’s world and the mad world. Numb by Portishead has lyrics that reflect the character of The Man:
I can’t understand myself anymore
‘Cause I’m still feeling lonely
Feeling so unholy
‘Cause the child roses like
Try to reveal what I could feel
But this loneliness
It just won’t leave me alone, oh no
(Written by Adrian Francis Utley, Beth Gibbons, Geoffrey Paul Barrow • Copyright © BMG Rights Management US, LLC)
The biggest challenge for sound design was creating the introduction to madness track, which had to be timed to an almost twelve minute long physical scene, with three atmosphere and pace changes. I worked for hours on end with our director, Jacob Kay and our choreographer, Kerrie Crockford to get the track timed perfectly and with smooth, mixed in transitions between the changes. After piecing together multiple different sounds, effects and snippets of music I had the final product:-
The effect with the actions on stage, was an energetic and powerful introduction to the madness.
(TRACK INTRO TO MADNESS) (Crawford, 2017)
For me, working with fellow artist and Musician, Joseph Wright, was a great experience. It enabled an outside ear and eye to produce our finale track, which represents a new beginning – a new beginning which is separate to the previous man’s life.
All the shows tracks can be found in the technical documents section of this blog.
References:
Crawford, J (2017) Intro to madness. 12 mins. 38 secs. If an Orchid Was All You Had. Lincoln, UK: Rubbish Theatre.