A new Berber­ian Sound Stu­dio adap­ta­tion brings aur­al chills to the stage

Peter Strickland’s Berber­ian Sound Stu­dio is as cin­e­mat­ic – metacin­e­mat­ic, even – as films come. It depends on a par­tic­u­larised gram­mar of pure cin­e­ma (dis­ori­ent­ing edits, the col­laps­ing of dif­fer­ent spa­tiotem­po­ral inte­ri­ors, even dub­bing and sub­ti­tles) to com­mu­ni­cate its man­nered sto­ry about the post-pro­duc­tion mak­ing of an Ital­ian hor­ror film (and the unmak­ing of an Eng­lish sound engineer).

And its every expres­sion is heav­i­ly inflect­ed with the filmic accents of gial­lo, Italy’s home­grown genre of stylised sadism and slaugh­ter. So the very idea that the film has been adapt­ed into a stage play – it is cur­rent­ly enjoy­ing a run at the Don­mar Ware­house – sug­gests a rad­i­cal change in its lan­guage. After all, in the film, the medi­um itself is very much a part of the message.

That said, Strickland’s film is already con­cerned with the process­es of lin­guis­tic and cul­tur­al adap­ta­tion, as Eng­lish mama’s boy Gilderoy (Toby Jones) finds him­self lost in his lat­est job in 1970s Italy, and uncer­tain where – or how will­ing­ly – he fits in with the misog­y­ny and mean-spirit­ed­ness of his new, alien environs.

When in Rome, one should do as the Romans do – but the ques­tion remains whether Gilderoy’s arche­typ­i­cal­ly Eng­lish reserve reflects a gen­uine resis­tance to the local licen­tious­ness and chau­vin­ism, or whether it is mere­ly a mask for a man who has long since tast­ed the for­bid­den fruit and assim­i­lat­ed to the habits of Ital­ian patri­archy, but who is uncom­fort­able with admit­ting the sig­nif­i­cant part that he is play­ing in all the ambi­ent abuse of women.

Con­ceived for the stage by Joel Hor­wood and Tom Scutt, and writ­ten by Hor­wood, the the­atri­cal ver­sion also plays upon the lin­guis­tic iso­la­tion of Gilderoy (Tom Brooke), sur­round­ed by Ital­ian that he strug­gles to under­stand. The only oth­er Eng­lish speak­ers in the stu­dio are brutish pro­duc­er Francesco (Enzo Cilen­ti), sym­pa­thet­ic dub­bing artist Sylvia (Lara Rossi) and the film’s direc­tor San­ti­ni (Luke Pasquali­no). And so the already alien­at­ed, anal­ly reten­tive engi­neer retreats into his lit­tle world of processed and dis­tort­ed record­ings, soon find­ing his mem­o­ries from his Dork­ing home (pre­served in tapes sent by his moth­er) and the moral hor­ror of his cur­rent work all merg­ing into a sin­gle, con­fused soundscape.

We become as immersed as Gilderoy. Even before the play has com­menced, the the­atre space is filled with a loop­ing bab­ble of Ital­ian voic­es, as though the audi­ence were chat­ting away in the Mediter­ranean rather than in Covent Gar­den. Sim­i­lar­ly, the open­ing con­ver­sa­tion between the new­ly arrived Gilderoy and the unhelp­ful recep­tion­ist Ele­na (Euge­nia Caru­so) takes place entire­ly off­stage, and is pre­sent­ed aurally.

As befits a sound stu­dio, here the audi­to­ry is every­thing – and through sound design alone, plus some very impres­sive live foley work from mute maestri Mas­si­mo and Mas­si­mo (Tom Espin­er, Hemi Yero­ham), not only is Santini’s unseen film (called The Eques­tri­an Vor­tex) con­jured, but also the dark­er sce­nar­ios play­ing out in Gilderoy’s crack­ing psyche.

Berber­ian Sound Stu­dio the play is not the same as the film. Like Gilderoy behind his mix­ing desk, Hor­wood has tin­kered with the source mate­ri­als, com­press­ing all Santini’s scenes into one, expand­ing the dia­logue between Gilderoy and Sylvia and alter­ing the end­ing entire­ly, while ampli­fy­ing the original’s themes of oppres­sion, com­plic­i­ty and sacrifice.

In an all-new plot line, Gilderoy has been tasked with design­ing the per­fect son­ic com­ple­ment to the film’s cli­mac­tic sequence, in which Sylvia’s char­ac­ter is heard, but not seen, being tor­tured to death by an unspec­i­fied imple­ment (or per­haps enti­ty) called ​‘the indeli­ble kiss’. As he reluc­tant­ly noo­dles with this in his spare time, Gilderoy – ever the suf­fer­ing artist – starts bleed­ing into the work and los­ing his own voice. He becomes what he despis­es and shows a will­ing­ness him­self to tor­ment the actress­es, all in the ser­vice of real­is­ing some­one else’s sadis­tic, woman-hat­ing fan­ta­sy that also, it would seem, is very much his own.

The play is set in a closed, oppres­sive sys­tem, bureau­crat­ic and bul­ly­ing. The stage is Stu­dio 7 of Lot 33, a place of tech­ni­cal behind-the-scenes mir­a­cle-work­ing and wiz­ardry, com­plete with insu­lat­ed booths for record­ing and mix­ing. Even as Gilderoy is tempt­ed into a Faus­t­ian pact with his employ­ers and the muti­lat­ing atroc­i­ties of The Eques­tri­an Vor­tex start replay­ing them­selves off-screen, he seems unable ever to leave the studio’s con­fines, his only escape being into a frag­ile, reced­ing world of audio nos­tal­gia that is rapid­ly becom­ing con­t­a­m­i­nat­ed and record­ed over by the trau­mas of the present.

‘Silen­zio’ reads the flash­ing red light over the engi­neer­ing booth – and this com­pro­mised, con­flict­ed pro­tag­o­nist comes to recog­nise that his own silence is cru­cial to the sound of real hor­ror. The results, bril­liant­ly staged, and just as hal­lu­ci­na­to­ry as the film, are a sight for sore ears and a real coup de théâtre. Now we just need Strickland’s work adapt­ed into a radio play, with every­thing reduced to pure sound.

Berber­ian Sound Stu­dio runs until 30 March. For more info vis­it don​mar​ware​house​.com