Menagerie

BACKGROUND: This work provided a frame for taking greater risks with sound than Daniel Schlusser (the director) and I have previously, pushing action on stage from understated realism to overblown video clip through sound design and musical decisions (related to action and light). The use of subliminal sound is an element of our developed audiovisual language which seems more innovative that the other sound designs I have experienced in theatre. SIGNIFICANCE: Commissioned work. Sold out season at Melbourne Theatre Company (Melbourne's premiere theatre company). Critically acclaimed. RESEARCH CONTRIBUTION: This production had two main research foci. The first was how to activate a huge space by providing various zones of sound which can fall in and out of diegetic logic. Whilst I have explored this previously through multi-speaker distribution of sound, Menagerie offered an opportunity to take greater risks. Having spot speakers in the physical shed on stage, playing with dialogue miked vs un miked inside allowed us to shift the audience's perspective of action and play with the feel of what they were looking at. But, by bolting transducers (vibrating weights) to the tin roof, we were able to turn the whole shed into a resonant speaker - which was disorienting and odd. The second focus was on a sliding scale of sonic reality. From surreal soundscape, through diegetic sound design, to diegetic singing, diegetic music, to non diegetic soundtrack, to music video clip panto, this work has been instrumental in articulating and refining the attendant feels which accompany those choices.