Review: 'Stereophonic' at the Pantages can't hit Broadway's high notes
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“Stereophonic,” David Adjmi’s heralded drama that won five Tony Awards including best play, is ready for its Los Angeles close-up.The first national tour production, which opened Wednesday at the Hollywood Pantages Theatre, seems right at home in the music capital of the world.The play about a 1970s rock band on the brink of superstardom takes place in recording studios in Sausalito and L.A., where the Laurel Canyon vibe is never out of sight.The visual crispness of this L.A.
premiere goes a long way toward dispelling doubts that the Pantages is the wrong venue for this ensemble drama.If there’s a problem, it isn’t the cavernousness of the theater.
The production, gleaming with period details on a set by David Zinn that gives us clear views into both the sound and control rooms, comfortably inhabits the performance space, at least from the perspective of a decent orchestra seat.The play, which includes original music from Will Butler, the Grammy-winning artist formerly of Arcade Fire, has a sound every bit as robust as one of the blockbuster musicals that regularly passes through the Pantages.The songs, crushed by the actors at top volume, are Butler’s indie rock re-creation of cuts for a part-British, part-American band that bears such a striking resemblance to Fleetwood Mac that a lawsuit brought by a former sound engineer and producer of the group was eventually settled.Adjmi, like Shakespeare, takes his inspiration where he finds it.
And like the Bard, he makes his sources his own, alchemizing the material for novel ends.Unfolding in 1976 and 1977, “Stereophonic” offers a fly-on-the-wall perspective of a band at a crossroads.While recording a new album top-heavy with expectations, the group falls prey to romantic conflicts and self-destructive spirals, to toxic jealousies and seething insecurities.
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