Adrian Rooney, Studio’s Master Electrician, designed both sound and lighting for Studio 2ndStage’s production of Terminus. Literary Director Adrien-Alice Hansel spoke with him about his process and insights into creating an atmosphere for Mark O’Rowe’s dizzying linguistic drama.
HOW WOULD YOU DESCRIBE TERMINUS?
It’s an overwhelming script to read—there are these three stories that intersect but are also separate. The subject matter is intense (demons made of worms, someone who’s sold his soul to the devil—other things I don’t want to spoil for people reading this). And on top of that, the play rhymes!
When I first read it, I had to read to out loud to really understand how it works. Now that we’re working on it, I’ve come to really appreciate the language and the rhythm. The play is dark and it’s funny. Way funnier than it seems at first. I think that Tom and everyone have done a great job keeping the dark humor alive in the script.
HOW DO SOUND AND LIGHT WORK IN THIS PIECE? WHAT FUNCTION DO THEY SERVE IN THIS PLAY?
Ultimately, really, your job with sounds or lights is to create an environment where the storytelling could show through. So together, they set an atmosphere for the events of the play, underlining the themes in the story.
This is one of those plays where lights and sound are the least important thing in the play. Really it’s about the text, and you need to respect the fact that this is a play that’s driven by the actors. The designers are there to facilitate them saying the words. And so…I’m superfluous in a way. You could do this under work light, in a bar…anywhere. So you don’t want to to be so flashy that it takes away from the core of the play.
Another cool thing about our production is that Tom decided, since we’re running in December, that he wanted to set the piece during Christmas. So the opening sound is a strain of Christmas music inspired by a busker I see in Columbia Heights—he’s a sax player—and there’s something cool and lonely about distant Christmas music. The idea is that these people are in a train station waiting room, and so we folded the holiday idea into the soundscape of the play.
WHAT’S IT LIKE DESIGNING BOTH ELEMENTS FOR ONE SHOW?
As both designers, you have the freedom to let one really dictate the other—the lights and sound are timed out within a quarter of a second with each other (which took a while to make work.) And I don’t have to compromise with someone else.
SO YOU CAN TAKE TOTAL CONTROL OF THE ATMOSPHERE.
Exactly. I mean, I like to collaborate: other designers make you smarter and help you look good. But it was also great to have so much control on this show, to not have to hash out with another designer whose cue was going to get shortened a second or two. Especially because so many of the few cues I do have establish the train station, it was really useful to control how a passing train sounds and looks together.
WHAT WAS IT LIKE WORKING WITH TOM?
It’s been really great, which is saying something on a show this intense. You can really get bogged down by the mood of a play, but Tom kept us motivated and refreshed. He’s also just easy to work with—he has ideas but wants to learn from you, and really wants to get things right. We just kept trying out looks until we found one that we all thought worked.
IS THERE ANYTHING ELSE YOU’D LIKE PEOPLE TO KNOW ABOUT TERMINUS?
Mark O’Rowe didn’t set the play during the holidays, but we have. And I think it’s an interesting companion to Bad Jews—that’s more of a romp. This is more elemental. It’s like a cool piece of art, almost performance art.