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May 26, 2013:

AMPLIFICATION

Bruce Kimmel Photograph bk's notes

Well, dear readers, it is late and I must write these here notes in a hurry because I am quite tired from a long day’s journey into night. So, let me just jump right in. I’ve complained before about the sound design in musicals today (and for the last decade, but never worse than now). Once upon a time musical theater performers had to use their voices, they had to project and the sound the audiences heard was real and wonderful. Somehow, with everyone doing their damn jobs, orchestra and singers, everyone was heard and the band was in the proper relation to the singers. Foot mics were enough. Then sometime in the early 1960s, body mics happened – they were fairly horrid and were mostly used only on the leads in the show, and resulted in muffled, unpleasant sound, but at least you knew who was singing and/or talking, so that was a plus. In 1975, A Chorus Line opened – no place for any kind of body mics so they used shotgun mics on the apron of the stage and that sound was perfect. In the revival, every single person had a body mic – and they actually tried to say that people today would not have been able to put up with the original sound design, to which I say, shut up and don’t make such stupid assumptions because you are WRONG. The new sound design on the revival of A Chorus Line was HORRIBLE. And those little mic packs just don’t look good bulging from leotards, I’m afraid. But that’s not the issue, the issue is the sound mixer has too much control and suddenly there is simply nothing real coming from the stage.

I don’t know at what point it became SOP for every single person in a cast, from leads to chorus, had to be miked. The first time I really became aware of just how artificial everything had become, sound-wise, was Beauty and the Beast, whose sound design was so off-putting to me that I absolutely hated every second I was in the Palace Theater. If an actor was all the way upstage with his back to the audience, it was like he was standing an inch in front of your face, yelling at you. And from there it just got worse and worse and audiences became more used to it and the more used to it they got, the louder the mixers mixed, so that attending a musical these days is akin to a rock concert. I’ve seen shows recently where I cannot figure out who is talking onstage. Literally. I look and look but the sound coming out of the speakers bears no relation to where the person singing or speaking is actually standing. Everyone sounds the same, everything sounds phony, and musical theater actors have become incredibly lazy and craft, the actual craft of theater performance has mostly gone the way of the dodo bird because now actors can whisper just like they do on the screen. Even actors in straight plays use body mics now.

And then there are the mics that run down the side of the face – sorry, wear one of those in a book musical and you’ve lost me forever because I don’t know actual people who walk around with a thing running down the side of their face. The head mics are fine if their really hidden in the hairline of even just over the ear. Those I can live with, but the other kind, forget it.

All this by way of saying that last evening I saw a musical entitled Parade. I don’t think it’s much of a secret around these here parts that I do not care for the show itself. I find the story interesting, and certainly it has drama and momentum. But the musicalizing of it just doesn’t do it for me. I do realize there are people who find the score close to the second coming, but I don’t find it close to any coming, let alone the second coming. I think it has its moments, but so much of it is declamatory and loud, which, for me, just alienates me from the story being told. And once one is onto the musical structure then there is a sameness to everything. And I don’t always find the book and score meshing with each other. It’s a show actors like because there are a lot of roles and some good characters to play. But I don’t really need to go into that again – some shows get to you (meaning me) and some don’t. The Most Happy Fella gets to me. Gypsy gets to me. A Chorus Line gets to me. I saw Parade in New York in a first-rate production directed by Harold Prince and I think he can do little wrong. I responded to the direction, the performances, the set, the lighting, the costumes, but not the show. Then I saw Rob Ashford’s scaled down production that played at the Mark Taper Forum. I am no fan of Mr. Ashford’s and I thought that production did the show no favors and made it even less involving for me. And now I’ve seen it a third time in a production I liked better than Mr. Ashford’s (that wouldn’t take much) but not nearly as well as Mr. Prince’s. Some wonderful performances, and it moved along, but again the show just didn’t do it for me. I will say in the interest of complete fairness that this is just me – I’m not trying to speak for anyone else – and I’ll also say that the LA critics have all raved, although none of the tough LA critics reviewed it. And the show does have some kind of cult status so people come and cheer a show that does seem to work for them.

But the sound – the band was so loud that lyrics were frequently lost. And then to compensate, instead of doing the smart thing and turning the band down, they raised the singers. And raised the singers. And raised the singers until all we were hearing was shrill, strident sound and singers sounding like they were sitting on our faces singing. There were some very good singers on that stage and you know what – they deserve better. They deserve to let their natural instrument shine forth and they shouldn’t have to compete with a pumped up band that is so loud (and purposely so, which I think they do to get the audience pumped up), and then a mixer who just keeps raising the sound level until you think your head is going to explode. I understand the need for sound reinforcement in large theaters, and I understand what all this bad sound design has done to audiences, so that audiences would actually have to be trained again to LISTEN. I’m not trying to pick on this specific production’s sound design because this is now an epidemic – I just wish it would stop. It is doing all the wrong things. The other thing I wish that would stop is that all these high schoolers and also friends and family who whoop and holler and scream after musical numbers. I mean it’s bad enough in shows where they’re begging the audience to do that by pumping up the sound at climactic moments and bumping up the lights as bright as they can be at climactic moments, but a show like Parade, which goes out of its way not to button songs so that most of the time there won’t be applause because this show is not Hello, Dolly!, but that stopped no one from whooping and hollering and screaming last night – which was mood-shattering, anti-dramatic, and is more about the whoopers and the hollerers than what is actually happening on the stage.

Our very own Jenna Rosen, who now has to use the name Jenna Lea (pronounced Lee) Rosen because someone – wait for it – already has that name at SAG, did her usual stellar job. She has only a small role but she makes the most of it and sings beautifully, as always. Robert Yacko, who’s about to do his third Kritzerland show, was excellent, and the fellow who played Leo was terrific.

Mr. Hammerstein said, “The hills are alive with the sound of music.” I’m sure he didn’t mean that a show playing in Fullerton should be heard in the hills of Hollywood, but that’s what it seemed like – please sound people – turn it down. Let’s have some reality, sound-wise. Thank you for listening to my unamplified plea.

Prior to that, I was up at ten, did a four-mile jog, picked up some packages, and did a tiny bit of work on the computer and loaded more Brit musicals into iTunes. Well, why don’t we all click on the Unseemly Button below because I must get a good night’s beauty sleep.

Today is busier than I want it to be. I’ll do a jog, of course, then I have a book signing to attend at two and that should have been it, but no, I then have a meeting at Art’s Deli, which I don’t even like, about something or other. Hopefully it will be short and sweet – I’d prefer not actually eating there, so I may just have a small nosh, then eat somewhere else. Then I’ll have the rest of the evening to myself.

Tomorrow at six in the morning I’ll announce our new title, then the home improvement people come at eight to begin their work, then we have our first Kritzerland rehearsal – so, for a holiday Monday, not exactly a holiday. The rest of the week is meetings and meals and rehearsals, culminating in our stumble-through, then sound check and show.

Well, dear readers, I must take the day, I must do the things I do, I must, for example, do a jog, attend a book signing, attend a meeting, eat, and relax. Today’s topic of discussion: It’s free-for-all day, the day in which you dear readers get to make with the topics and we all get to post about them. So, let’s have loads of lovely topics and loads of lovely postings, shall we, whilst I hit the road to dreamland where I shall dream unamplified dreams.

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