Reviews
Review: Sound of Silence
27th o February 2010, Laurie Atkinson, The Dominion Post
Peace, love and yearning echo in the Sound of Silence
Tom Stoppard has an ageing, diehard English Marxist in his play Rock 'n' Roll say that "to this day there are men in public life who can't look me in the eye because I knew them when they dressed like gigantic five-year-olds".
The the magnificently costumed Sound of Silence, which is crammed with period detail, the New Riga Theatre Company from Latvia also takes us back to the 1960s when, for a brief period child-like behaviour, peculiar clothing, and political naivety seemed suitable and subtle ways to undermine and forget the rigid conformity and repressive power of the Soviet Union.
In Rock 'n' Roll, Stoppard suggests that the pagan spirit of rock'n'roll played a part in the downfall of the communist rule in Czechoslovakia; in Sound of Silence the songs of Simon and Garfunkel are symbolic of the emerging liberalism in the Soviety-occupied Baltic states.
But where the two plays really differ is that Stoppard's is full of words; in Sound of Silence, there are none - for three hours and 15 minutes - and it doesn't matter for a second.
Director Alvis Hermanis believes that the violence that pervades modern drama is exhausted and simply boring. It is time, he says, "to make positive theatre the hardest task of all is to make a performance about harmonious and happy people".
Peace, love and no more war and all the idealistic dreams of the flower power era are created in a brilliant series of scenes and images that romanticise the period but also display the yearnings of a down-trodden people.
In a rundown apartment block, 14 characters take us through loosely linked scenes of surrealistic humour (five women giving birth at the same time), Marx Brothers hilarity (a room full of people attempting to get good reception to hear a Simon and Garfunkel concert) and wistful humour (a feather being glown about the stage).
And in an amazing finale, Bridge over Troubled Water is played full bore with the entire cast in a number of situations that defy description but make perfect sense on stage.
Positive theatre indeed.
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