{"id":1724,"date":"2019-02-15T22:03:30","date_gmt":"2019-02-15T22:03:30","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.artsjournal.com\/performancemonkey\/?p=1724"},"modified":"2019-02-15T22:03:40","modified_gmt":"2019-02-15T22:03:40","slug":"propwatch-the-celery-in-berberian-sound-studio","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.artsjournal.com\/performancemonkey\/2019\/02\/propwatch-the-celery-in-berberian-sound-studio.html","title":{"rendered":"Propwatch: the celery in Berberian Sound Studio"},"content":{"rendered":"\n
\"\"<\/figure>\n\n\n\n

Some props have extended stage careers. Swords debut\nshiny and new in Romeo and Juliet<\/em> and\nkeep clattering away until they\u2019re finally battered to bits in Coriolanus<\/em>. Tankards roll sturdily from Henry IV<\/em> to A Chaste Maid in Cheapside<\/em>. Others? One night and you\u2019re over.\nThat\u2019s showbiz, baby.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

In Berberian Sound Studio<\/a><\/em> at London’s Donmar, the celery and carrot, the cabbage and water melons, all make a distinct if self-immolating impact. They\u2019re all pressed into service as sound effects. It\u2019s the 1970s, and Gilderoy (Tom Brooke), a timid English sound designer specialising in the chirrups of his native Surrey, has been invited to enhance the atmosphere on a queasy giallo<\/em> horror movie. He\u2019s asked to create the noise of tombs, tortures and terrors \u2013 a task he begins with trepidation, but embraces with increasing, obsessive zeal.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Like all predominantly masculine spaces, the studio is a\nspecies of shed. A cluttered hoarder\u2019s delight (the whiffiness is implied). And\nthere\u2019s no object that can\u2019t be turned to use. Gilderoy, often working alone at\nnight (we never see him leave) uses coughs and gloves and tape and rags,\nteasing them into the sounds of nightmare. As he distorts them, so he too seems\nto warp from the bashful decency of his first encounters. Having recoiled at\nthe oppressive fates of the film\u2019s female characters, he then goads himself to\nmimic their torments. He discards his scruples but barely notices. No vegetable\nis safe.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Need something bone-crunching? Try a carrot, neat and\nnasty. Something horrid to do with innards? There\u2019s your water melons, wrenched\nto a pulp by the studio\u2019s dedicated foley artists (both called Massimo). And\nfor true aural unease, heeeeeere\u2019s celery. Alone in the studio, Brooke holds the\nstalks up to the mike with quizzical intensity. Snap it, and you imagine a cruelly\nbroken finger. Twist it, and the amplified squeaky squelch is something you don\u2019t\nwant to imagine. We\u2019re a long way from waldorf salad.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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Hemi Yeroham and Tom Espiner as the Massimos. Photo (also Tom Brooke, top) by
Marc Brenner<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n

It\u2019s a concatenation of Toms, this show. Tom Brooke, who is such a singular actor \u2013 vulnerable but distancing (it\u2019s the wide, perfectly round eyes, perhaps). Tom Scutt<\/a>, the designer making his discomforting directorial debut. And Tom Espiner, who with Sound and Fury<\/a> has made something of a speciality of raising hackles in the dark. He\u2019s the production\u2019s foley artist and also plays one of the indomitable Massimos, in implacable shades and, occasionally, clackity high heels. (Why is a sound effects specialist called a foley artist? After Jack Foley<\/a>, an early-cinema pioneer of the art, from Show Boat<\/em> to Spartacus<\/em>). Foley is a craft that demands curiosity, ingenuity, devotion \u2013 and a poker-faced playfulness. It\u2019s the essence of theatre \u2013 turning prosaic reality into mind-messing illusion before our very eyes. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

But Berberian Sound\nStudio<\/em> (based on Peter Strickland\u2019s 2012 film) cautions as much as celebrates.\nHowever delightful the effects\u2019 ingenuity (at the preview I saw, one frenetic\nsequence got its own round of applause), they\u2019re also chilling. Always at one\nremove: from the story and its characters. From the women. From the celery.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

There\u2019s a short film of Tom Espiner creating foley effects here<\/a>. Bats, vultures and \u2013 shudder \u2013 the unbearable perils of celery.<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n

Follow David on Twitter: @mrdavidjays<\/a><\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Some props have extended stage careers. Swords debut shiny and new in Romeo and Juliet and keep clattering away until they\u2019re finally battered to bits in Coriolanus. Tankards roll sturdily from Henry IV to A Chaste Maid in Cheapside. Others? One night and you\u2019re over. That\u2019s showbiz, baby. In Berberian Sound Studio at London’s Donmar, […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":1725,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_genesis_hide_title":false,"_genesis_hide_breadcrumbs":false,"_genesis_hide_singular_image":false,"_genesis_hide_footer_widgets":false,"_genesis_custom_body_class":"","_genesis_custom_post_class":"","_genesis_layout":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[143,322,321,34,452],"class_list":{"0":"post-1724","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-uncategorized","8":"tag-donmar","9":"tag-props","10":"tag-propwatch","11":"tag-theatre","12":"tag-tom-scutt","13":"entry"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.artsjournal.com\/performancemonkey\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1724","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.artsjournal.com\/performancemonkey\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.artsjournal.com\/performancemonkey\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.artsjournal.com\/performancemonkey\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.artsjournal.com\/performancemonkey\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1724"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/www.artsjournal.com\/performancemonkey\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1724\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1727,"href":"https:\/\/www.artsjournal.com\/performancemonkey\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1724\/revisions\/1727"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.artsjournal.com\/performancemonkey\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/1725"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.artsjournal.com\/performancemonkey\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1724"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.artsjournal.com\/performancemonkey\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1724"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.artsjournal.com\/performancemonkey\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1724"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}