WhatsOnStage.com: One of the un-lauded aspects of the magnificent revival of Ma Rainey's Black Bottom at the National is the sound design by Paul Arditti which matches, seamlessly, the "playing" of the onstage blues and jazz quartet with a backing track. But this technical miracle struck me as an exception to the norm these days.
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I definitely agree that the progression of film/TV, hi-fi music, and big-and-loud concerts, has caused American theatre to follow these trends. Just as film and TV influenced theatrical scenic design, pushing it to be more realistic, sound design and the mic’ing of actors is following the trend of trying to achieve perfect sound. These days, if you go to the theatre and miss some of the lines, you are frustrated, while in the past it was common to not always hear every word. Audiences used to need to listen more carefully and remain quieter so that they could hear everything being said onstage. There has been a marked increase in popularity of mic’ing entire casts and covering theatres with delay-speakers, filling in every sonic gap and trying to create an equal experience in every seat. This has coincided with a trend in theatre that has performances getting louder and louder. I was extremely frustrated when I saw both If/Then and Book of Mormon (I promise, I don’t hate Brian Ronan!). If/Then was mixed quite loudly, causing the orchestra and actors to be fighting for space, and causing me to (ironically) miss many of the words in the songs. Book of Mormon was loud enough that it was uncomfortable, but not loud enough to warrant ear plugs. This tendency for contemporary productions to have their levels creeping towards the pain-threshold is something that I find really frustrating. While I understand why concerts are getting louder, there is little reason why theatre needs to be pushing the decibels as well. I disagree with the idea that because people are expecting louder performances, the theatre industry and its sound designers owe it to them. I am a huge proponent of keeping live performance in reasonable volume levels, especially theatre. Just because being loud is getting easier, and people are expecting it, doesn’t mean it is the right direction.
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