Pain

I am at an end with Schtanhaus and Headlong Theatre’s production of The Winters Tale. Sunday morning I felt proud of the production, feeling proud of my contribution to my first professional Shakespeare production, now I want nothing to do with it.

There have been three previews so far and press night is tomorrow and I feel the heart has been ripped out of my sound design. Changes do have to be made but my sound designs are a delicate business, some parts have more than a functional role, they also have a structural part to play. They make sense of other parts of the design through balance, reflection, setting up themes and ideas so that they can happen later on. If removed a lot of it won’t work very well and will feel out of place.

In this production the pivotal piece is the introduction. This had a very difficult and prolonged birth and when it arrived I was so happy. I felt I had managed to make something of exquisite beauty, this does not happen very often. To explain it’s role I have quoted the text I had written for Schtanhaus education blurb:

The introduction music to The Winters Tale posed me lots of problems. In this production, the play starts in 1930s Italy. I was mislead by trying to somehow impart this information to the audience through the music. I knew it had to have  a decadent and grand air and this led me to look at overtures to Italian operas near the same period – those of Verdi and Puccini. Deadends. Those that might work were too well known, either they would misguide by referencing the story of the opera they were overtures to, or they have been imparted other meanings through their use in adverts and other films – think La Forza del Destino used in Stella Artois ads.

I gave up the idea of cultural reference, deciding in this case it was not important, atmosphere and mood – and this is nearly always the case – are most important. I wrote a piece of music that was both grand and tender, tremolo strings, pizzicato bass and oboe. Grand so that it reflected the majesty, richness and power of Leontes court, tender so that it could close the play satisfyingly (hopefully reflecting on the character of Perdita). The tremolo strings add edginess, pointing forward to Leontes paranoia, and a kind of shimmer. The time is loosely in four with a hint of a slow three. The ambiguity of time signature helps the music to float, a sumptuous feeling of not quite coming down to earth. After all what follows, is a series of dreams – the world of Leontes paranoia, the illusionary safe haven of the pastoral. Ungroundedness

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I’ve been asked to remove it (as well as some other stuff which is actually fine with me as they don’t play such important parts in the design, except for two cues which are of no musical importance but of structural importance) and that is extremely painful for me. When I was told my body went numb and now I am in a sort of mourning. Part of me has been cut away and the production has no joy for me anymore. I am not turning up to press night. and I am not going to see it again.

Another musical that was cut introduced the second half and underscored Time’s monologue I am also very fond. But it’s role is not pivotal and it does not trouble me for it not to be there.

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