Silence is golden for ‘Sounds’ premiere
Theater companies claim bragging rights if they’re one of the first — or better still, the first — to produce a play after it makes a splash in New York.
Kim Tobin-Lehl and Philip Lehl, co-directors of Stark Naked Theatre Company, are going one better with their Houston premiere of “Small Mouth Sounds,” opening Friday. They’re producing Bess Wohl’s play before its New York production later this season — and they’re the only company that will have the rights to present it before then.
The Lehls, husbandand-wife actor and directors, saw the play earlier this year, just before it ended its limited run at Ars Nova, a small off-off-Broadway company that premieres new works.
“We were so knocked out by it that we moved quickly to grab the rights to produce the show,” says Tobin-Lehl, who is directing. “Shortly after our rights were secured and our contract signed, we were informed that the play had been slated for a commercial run in New York, and that all other production rights would be on hold until that happens.”
“Small Mouth Sounds” depicts six strangers attending a silent retreat in order to resolve personal struggles. The weekend brings a new struggle, though, as they try to honor their commitment to remain silent. One character who is not charged thusly is the retreat’s leader, who is heard but remains unseen. The other characters have no more than four or five lines apiece.
“The characters have a lot to say, but can’t use words to say it,” TobinLehl explains. “Their need to communicate, without words, is what drives most of the action. The play has been lauded for its ability to tell an amazing story with little talking and for highlighting the eloquence of silence.”
Wohl’s participation in a silent weekend retreat, at the Omega Institute in upstate New York, sparked her play.
“Once you get over how odd it is not to speak,” Wohl told the New York Times, “there’s something incredibly relieving about not having to say anything.”
Tobin-Lehl says that while the play lacks much text, the storytelling is clear and well constructed.
“We felt we knew each of the characters intimately and were moved by the stories, despite the fact they’d spoken so little. They told us everything simply by living over the course of the play’s 100 minutes. Film does this all the time, but it’s relatively rare in live theater.”
Because intimacy is so crucial to the play, Tobin-Lehl says Studio 101, where Stark Naked Theatre performs, is an ideal venue — similar to the off-off-Broadway house where it ran.
She notes that the content is right in keeping with the company’s title and the emotional “nakedness” — honesty — its productions strive to attain. “When actors don’t have words to hide behind,” she says, “any fake emotion or action that is not applicable to the story becomes glaringly obvious.”
Besides directing, Tobin-Lehl also is in the cast, which includes Pamela Vogel, Kregg Dailey, Nick Farco, Amy Garner Buchanan and Jeff Miller.
The “small mouth sounds” of the title, by the way, are vocal communications achieved without words — laughing, snorting, sighing, giggling and moaning.
“They’re the sounds,” Tobin-Lehl says, “that articulate feelings and ideas that words sometimes can’t express.”