I said I'd be back soon right?
I wasn't lying.
This past weekend was a pretty busy one for me and it marked Northwestern's premier of 4.48 Psychosis, a play by the late UK playwright,
Sarah Kane. The piece revolves around a woman with severe clinical depression just before she commits suicide and reads more as a poem.
My friend Ashley Albert, who I know well from the all-female a cappella group,
Significant Others that we are both in, decided she wanted to put the play up with her friend and roommate, Will Kazda. The piece was co-directed by my friends Hannah Greene and Darren Barrere. In this version, female actors performed around the one actress who played the patient. These chorus members served to echo and intensify the patient's fears at points throughout the play, and also functioned as extensions of the doctor, one of two men in the cast. The chorus of women consisted of Ali White, Maria Benson, Molly Lyons, Chloe Picot, Amy Young and Anna Miles--all Northwestern students. Along with Albert and Kazda, who played the patient and doctor, respectively, a violin player, played by my friend and fellow sound designer, Alex Rehberg was also featured, playing haunting melodies as Albert portrayed a riveting descent
into deeper and deeper depression.
So how did I get involved? Well, Andrea Krushefski, the wonderful producer who had let me on board for A Streetcar Named Desire was seeking a sound designer, somewhat late in the game, for the short process that went into this valuable piece of art. I quickly agreed to help her out and met with director, Hannah Greene, who gave me specific sound ideas. The piece was to be put up in a room in Kresge, the equivalent of a classroom space, pre-equipped with two built-in presentation speakers, which would be sufficient for our use.
The soundtrack of depression: low tones, gentle ticking clocks in the doctor's office, smooth and annoying jazz in the waiting room of a doctor's office and, of course, Billie Holiday and her haunting depression-ridden tunes of the 1940's. Both What is This Thing Called Love? and I'll Be Seeing You were pieces we chose to use. In the case of 4.48, the goal of the sound design was to subtly let the audience experience the patient's anxiety without overtaking or overdramatizing an already, very serious, situation. The sound of the ticking clock, for instance, was meant to set the sterile mood of the doctor's office and to emulate the metronome that is used to keep time as the patient takes a Sanity Test at two points during the play. It's always there in the doctor scenes, but ticks softly so as not to draw attention to itself.
Low rumbles were meant to be unsettling for the characters and for the audience watching the show. They would swell and reduce at key points throughout the script to highlight the most poignant lines and to intensify emotion, hopefully without over dramatizing or "sentamentalizing" moments.
My favorite cue would have to be, I'll Be Seeing You. The directors both love Billie, as do I, and the song itself reflects her own struggles with depression throughout her life as a singer. I added a bunch of reverb to the track, which increased in the mix over time. Additionally, I creeped one of the low tones underneath the mix so that it was a bit more ominous. The tone got louder as the song faded down into almost imperceptible reverb so that the tone actually made itself apparent to the audience. This sonically symbolized depression taking over underneath the, otherwise, beautiful and longing song.
I was delighted to get such incredible guidance from the two directors, who knew what they wanted right away and made the atypical one-week process a delight!
My next sound design project, Luna, a Theater for Young Audiences piece directed by my friend Dana O'Brien, will certainly be a contrast! More on that as I start to write music and get things going. Spring has sprung and new sounds will be heard by all.
Peace.Love. Music
Kara Ali
