Theatre review: Berberian Sound Studio

Before Josie Rourke takes on her own final production at the Donald and Margot Warehouse she's bringing back a well-known theatre name in an unfamiliar role: Tom Scutt makes his directorial debut with Berberian Sound Studio, an unexpected first venture for someone whose day job is designing visuals. Because although Scutt and Anna Yates have indeed designed a detailed 1970s Italian sound studio that gives the play a strong visual identity, Joel Horwood's play is, as the title suggests, really all about its soundscape. Based on a 2012 horror film by Peter Strickland - apparently a cult favourite although I'd never heard of it before this adaptation was announced - it sees sheltered sound designer Gilderoy (Tom Brooke,) who's only ever worked on nature documentaries from the isolation of his shed in Surrey, accept a job offer from an Italian director who's a big fan on his work.

Gilderoy flies out to the Italian studio without first checking what kind of film he'll be working on - it turns out Santini (Luke Pasqualino) makes grisly, sexually explicit, exploitation horror movies he likes to think are art.

It also turns out the post-production studio will handle all the sound, as Santini likes to overdub his actors with different voices, so as well as all the foley work (performed balletically by two men both called Massimo) Gilderoy will be recording all the dialogue. But the real reason Santini sought him out was to create a single sound effect: The film ends with the heroine's death by an unseen, unknown mediaeval torture device, and Gilderoy's task is to provide the final shocker by deciding what The Eternal Kiss sounds like. With Santini himself preferring to stay away for the most part, the studio is run by the bullying Francesco (Enzo Cilenti,) whose brutal approach to making lead voice actress Silvia (Lara Rossi) scream is making her lose her voice.

Gilderoy is not given an English-language script or allowed to watch the whole film up front, and as he sees more footage he starts to believe he's working on a snuff movie. Between this and his growing obsession with creating the perfect Eternal Kiss, his sanity starts to slip. There's a lot to like about Berberian Sound Studio, with a perfectly-cast Brooke as perplexed fish out of water surrounded by people speaking in a foreign language (and the cast list being full of British-Italian actors shows there's been no sparing the authenticity.) Ironically this is probably a case where speaking a foreign language perfectly would be a downside, as the large amount of untranslated Italian puts the audience on the same footing as the baffled Gilderoy.

Theatremakers have been obsessed with movie foley art for a while, but at least in recent years they've started to use it in more creative ways than just putting it on stage and hoping the audience are impressed by the sounds coming out of unlikely objects, Katie. Scutt has huge fun building entire scenes out of the horrific sounds made by destroying unsuspecting fruit and vegetables, and needless to say the actual sound designers Ben and Max Ringham are among the real stars of the show. The story touches on up-to-the-minute themes of the exploitation of actors, particularly female ones; initially upset by the way the actresses are pushed to create their vocals, Gilderoy ends up manipulating Carla (Beatrice Scirocchi) to get the perfect horror movie scream out of her.

Berberian Sound Studio's storytelling gets a bit muddy, and Gilderoy's breakdown is handled a bit too abruptly for me to really be able to say what happens in the end. Which might not be so bad if the effect of a disorientating horror movie had been properly captured. But although it provides plenty to think about, what I'd have really liked is more actual scary moments - or indeed any. There's a lot of creepy noises, some disturbing visuals and inasmuch as it makes sense a dark and disorientating story, but it never adds up to shivers up the spine.

Berberian Sound Studio by Joel Horwood, based on the screenplay by Peter Strickland, is booking until the 30th of March at the Donmar Warehouse.

Running time: 1 hour 30 minutes straight through.

Photo credit: Marc Brenner.