As the company's de facto vigorous defender of cinema (though Erin counts too), I'm having trouble seeing anything inherently wrong with using music to enhance mood. Music, in film at least, is one of the most powerful tools a director has for directing attention, enhancing suspense, pumping up emotion. It can be severely overused, of course, but used properly it works wonders.

On stage, though, I see exactly what you mean about the dangers. Acting takes on such a more important role onstage than onscreen, and you need to be able to rely on the actors for virtually everything, not having the benefit of a camera to direct action or narrative flow.

I think you're going to have to ask yourself a question whenever you decide to use music: what makes me want to use it here? If it's because you don't think the emotion is coming across enough through the acting, that's probably the wrong reason. But I can't imagine you doing that anyway. I think your instinct will probably get you far.

 

Hello all, I'm Nick, the Story Project's scenic designer. This is my unofficial debut post to the blog; my official hello is soon to come.

It seems to me that every audience member connects to a piece of theater through different means and on different levels. Theater is unique in the number of sensory inputs it has at its disposal to enhance mood and understanding. As a set designer, I take into the emotional effects of the scenery into account when I'm choosing what to present to the audience, so why shouldn't the composer be allowed to do the same? I feel this no-emotion-mentality is left-over from sound design's long history of being denigrated to a second-tier design element. Clearly, as the theater world is just now learning, it is not.

As I said before, each spectator comes to a piece of theater with different preferences of how to connect to a piece (be it though visuals, text, the human connection, all of the above). This is what makes the unity between all of the creative elements so important, maximizing a pieces accessibility to as many different kinds of people as possible. Of course, any design elements can be used to create clever and creative contrasts with great success, but that only works when you have a unified proposal to play *against*. Truth be told, the best-designed productions I've seen are the ones that use sound to enhance meaning on numerous levels, including the semiotic, the narrative, and yes, the emotional too.

So my question is: Is sound so different from everything else?

Methinks not.

 

One of the other considerations with the use of underscoring is the question of verisimilitude. I've often argued that suspension of disbelief is very different in theatre than in film: in some ways, it is antithetical to the purpose and function of theatre, and in some ways it is more crucial than film.

Either way, it is far easier to BREAK this suspension in theatre than in film. To me, the use of underscoring draws too much attention to the behind-the-scenes work. It more often that not distracts from the action and the story because it emphasizes the artificial nature of the medium.

Sometimes, of course, this can work to a play's advantage. Sometimes the music becomes its own character--as Jess says, it has a conversation with the actors. In general, "cinematic" music works best with theatre that is not literally realistic. (For example, underscoring works better in "Quills" than in "House of Blue Leaves.") A good soundscape can become part of the design--part of the set, even--but only in a show that already eschews strict verisimilitude.

And then sometimes you just need to cover a scene change.

 

(I realize that House of Blue Leaves is not actually the best example, as it is not strictly literal throughout. But you get the idea.)