Arguably the very best new American drama since Annie Baker’s The Flick, David Adjmi’s Stereophonic shares each a hyper-naturalistic fashion and a sprawling three-hour operating time with that 2013 masterwork. However the similarities finish there. Chronicling a turbulent yr in California recording studios throughout which a fictional Nineteen Seventies rock band labors over the follow-up to their breakthrough album, that is an immersive plunge into the fraught strategy of inventive collaboration as pressures mount and interpersonal concord dissolves into acrimony.
Humorous, uncooked and poignant in equal measure, this expertly sculpted play has the texture of each a behind-the-music docudrama and a misplaced Robert Altman movie, with its astute microcosmic focus, its frequent wash of overlapping dialogue and its sly nudges towards satire. Actually, whereas the music — fabulous unique songs written by Will Butler, previously of Arcade Hearth — is pop-rock somewhat than nation, Stereophonic might nearly be an expanded vignette lifted proper out of Nashville.
It someway manages to be fluidly cinematic, richly novelistic and bracingly theatrical, concurrently epic and intimate. Adjmi, whose earlier performs embody Gorgeous and 3C, reveals an ear for nice dialogue that’s by no means been sharper.
Directed by Daniel Aukin with a granular consideration to nuance, the manufacturing involves Broadway after drawing ecstatic opinions in a sold-out prolonged run late final yr at Playwrights Horizons, the identical Off Broadway mainstay that birthed The Flick. Somewhat than going the anticipated route and recasting with title expertise for field workplace clout, the producers have made the shrewd resolution to stay with the unique actors, all however one in all whom are making their Broadway debuts. There’s not a weak hyperlink within the seven-member ensemble, 5 of whom additionally sing and play devices.
Adjmi has mentioned that the thought got here to him whereas on a flight listening to the Led Zeppelin cowl of “Babe I’m Gonna Depart You” and marveling on the tangle of jagged feelings Robert Plant pours into his vocals. From there, the playwright’s creativeness led him to the studio wherein the monitor was being recorded, which hatched the thought of a whole play set in simply such an area.
Ingeniously designed by David Zinn — with the engineers at an enormous mixing console within the downstage management room, bordered by hippie-chic décor, and the band fitfully laying down tracks within the glass-walled, soundproofed dwell room on the rear — the setting turns into a cauldron of clashing egos. The primary three acts happen in a Sausalito studio, whereas the fourth and closing act shifts to Los Angeles, after a lot of the central relationships have frayed maybe past restore.
Inevitably, the make-up of the band, whose title we by no means study, will invite associations with Fleetwood Mac. The three British constitution members, married couple Reg (Will Brill) and Holly (Juliana Canfield) on bass and keyboard/vocals, respectively, and large daddy Simon (Chris Stack) on drums, correspond to John and Christine McVie and Mick Fleetwood. Likewise, the American couple who joined some years later and helped push the group to mainstream success, vocalist Diana (Sarah Pidgeon) and lead guitarist/vocalist Peter (Tom Pecinka), are ringers for Stevie Nicks and Lindsey Buckingham.
Stereophonic additionally echoes the trajectory of Fleetwood Mac coming off their chart-topping self-titled 1975 album and tumbling into the messy expertise of recording Rumours, because the relationships of each {couples} had been breaking down and Fleetwood’s spouse, again in England, was divorcing him.
However these similarities are merely the skeleton on which Adjmi hangs his riveting research of creating artwork out of emotional turmoil. Each one of many band members is a totally fleshed-out character, and whereas a few of them could share traits with their Fleetwood Mac counterparts — Peter, the egomaniacal control-freak, tracks carefully with revelations about Buckingham which have emerged through the years — nothing feels borrowed. The play is not any much less a piece of fiction than, say, Daisy Jones & The Six.
Adjmi deftly bounces tensions among the many band off two beleaguered peacekeepers, lead engineer Grover (Eli Gelb), who has fudged his earlier expertise with The Eagles and can more and more be at loggerheads with Peter; and his unprepossessing assistant Charlie (Andrew R. Butler), the supply of a hilarious operating joke in that the band members hardly ever discover him and once they do, nobody can keep in mind his title. The chorus-like commentary between these two when the musicians are out of earshot is gold.
The conversational exchanges at first are amiable because the musicians kill time smoking cigarettes or joints within the management room between principally abortive makes an attempt to lock in a model of the songs they’ll all agree on. Issues are good, with information of their album from the earlier yr creeping again into the Billboard charts after which climbing briskly, together with a success single written by Diana. In concept, studying that the document firm has tripled their price range ought to alleviate a number of the strain. However Adjmi reveals exceptional ability at stealthily introducing tensions and festering resentments, which steadily erupt into explosive meltdowns.
Reg’s eating regimen of bourbon and blow turns into an issue, not simply in his marriage to Holly however in his self-discipline with the work. Diana, whereas exhibiting early indicators of rising because the band’s breakout star, is insecure about her lack of musical literacy. “I can’t be a rock star and be this silly,” she moans. When Peter, who repeatedly undermines her shaky self-confidence, tells her to lose the tambourine, she has a mini disaster about what to do along with her palms (which doubles amusingly as a winking reference to Nicks). The principally unflappable Simon will get labored up over Grover’s points together with his tempo. And Holly is usually left tapping her toes with rising impatience whereas ready for everybody else to get it collectively.
One of many masterstrokes of the play, which develops with an nearly symphonic movement of actions, is Adjmi’s resolution to make us wait to listen to — and be blown away by — precise music. Diana’s first try to put down a vocal comes nearly a half-hour in, whereas the primary monitor on which your entire band performs is even later, walloping the viewers with a robust wall of sound that makes their sudden success solely believable. Butler’s songs — heard principally in fragments, although a extra full recording is within the works — by no means sound like pastiche, however like genuine nuggets of mid-‘70s rock from a gaggle of outstanding abilities.
Essentially the most constant friction within the room comes from Peter, the self-appointed producer whose perfectionism more and more turns authoritarian. His blunt criticisms are felt most acutely by Diana, constructing to a tearful altercation performed offstage in personal, however overheard on the sound board by Grover and Charlie, unable to withstand turning up the mic.
The sexual politics of the period are evident not simply within the attitudes of the male band members but additionally within the usually wickedly humorous idle banter between Grover and Charlie. However the play’s central battle is the fissure that widens between Peter and Diana, who’ve been collectively 9 years. A stranger to tact, he continually talks right down to her and grows impatient along with her insecurities, which have roots again of their struggling early days when she held down a crappy job so he might give attention to music.
The conflict between Grover, anxious to ascertain himself as a producer, and Peter is sort of as necessary a supply of rancor, the engineer’s calm steadily eroding as recording classes run on all night time with minimal progress.
Stereophonic might be known as a office drama, a quarrelsome household play and even an prolonged hangout, as a lot a vibe as a narrative. What makes it so riveting — in a dual-channel method mirrored within the title — is that along with the wealthy characterizations and rocky group dynamics, we get unbelievable specificity on the earth Adjmi has conjured.
Whereas the band tinkers with songs and the engineers combine the tracks, we watch the tape machine rolling, witness the late-night scramble to discover a substitute console module, really feel Simon’s bruised self-importance when he’s pressured to make use of a click on monitor and tense up over the intricate strategy of tightening a rattly snare drum. (Stack’s snooty prickliness is priceless.)
The eye to even the smallest element of this setting will make the play particularly attractive to musicians with studio expertise, however it’s by no means inaccessible to audiences missing in specialised data.
Key to creating all of it really feel like fly-on-the-wall actuality is Ryan Rumery’s layered sound design, mixing absolutely audible control-room speak with muffled voices from the dwell room and irritation, anger or sarcasm resonating loud and clear by way of the mics every time Grover is scapegoated for a screwup or delay. Justin Craig’s music course is not any much less important, as are the groovy interval costumes of Enver Chakartash and the subtly modulated lighting of Jiyoun Chang.
Performances are exhausting to fault. Brill reveals Reg at his most pathetically wasted but additionally upbeat because the hopeless romantic contemplates life on a houseboat or the rewards of wholesome consuming as soon as he cleans up. Gelb is unexpectedly transferring as a person desperate to show himself, steadily extra bruised by Peter’s abuse however asserting his tenuous authority with weary tenacity.
Canfield (final seen as Kendall Roy’s harried assistant Jess on Succession) brings heat and grounded intelligence to Holly, whereas additionally exhibiting her mood when pushed. It’s vital that the least broken relationships by the tip of the year-long ordeal are these between Grover and Charlie, and extra importantly, Holly and Diana — even when hints of a potential rift do in the end floor between the ladies.
Pecinka nails the cruelty, the petty jealousy and the self-sabotage of Peter, whose inventive instincts could typically be proper, however his method of speaking them will be brutal, his disregard for band members’ emotions spreading the sting. Pidgeon by no means overplays Diana’s neuroses and as resentments are aired, she charts the character’s rising power, painfully asserting her independence from Peter, which leaves him alternately livid and crushed.
Like a vinyl basic being faraway from its gatefold cowl inch by inch, Stereophonic slowly reveals its complexity, sharing the highs that come from working collectively to make nice artwork and the spiraling lows of a shattered union. By the point the play ends, its searing emotional heft creeps up and grabs you by the throat. It’s a chart topper.
Venue: Golden Theatre, New York
Solid: Will Brill, Andrew R. Butler, Juliana Canfield, Eli Gelb, Tom Pecinka, Sarah Pidgeon, Chris Stack
Playwright: David Adjmi
Director: Daniel Aukin
Set designer: David Zinn
Costume designer: Enver Chakartash
Lighting designer: Jiyoun Chang
Sound designer: Ryan Rumery
Music director: Justin Craig
Orchestrations: Will Butler, Justin Craig
Manufacturing: Playwrights Horizons
Offered by Sue Wagner, John Johnson, Seaview, Sonia Friedman Productions, Linden Productions, Ashley Melone, Nick Mills