Review: Rebecca
From suspense film to theatre stage
HOT SPOTS
This autumn’s major musical Rebecca brings the effects of action films to the stage of the Helsinki City Theatre. Producing effects for the theatre stage is the same as for a film – only more difficult, because you have to go straight every night. There is no possibility of retake.
Rebecca is a fresh and original work among the classic Anglo-American musicals touring the world. Alfred Hitchcock’s The story of the Oscar-winning thriller premiered as a musical in Vienna just a couple of years ago. So the Finnish version is only the second, so the audience’s expectations of what the show should be like have not accumulated as a burden.
The sound design also started from an unusually clean slate. Thanks to the new sound equipment, the visually stunning musical also offers a treat for the ears.
Rebecca’s sound designers Eradj Nazimov and Seppo “Sepi” Myllyrinne work from a vantage point in the auditorium’s sound control room, from where you can easily see everything that happens in the performance. The duo, who have been involved in the major project from the beginning, have pondered the soundscapes of the musical with the director and set out to implement them with fresh ideas and tools. From meetings to the construction of effect sounds, and piece by piece, the eerie manor milieu of the 1920s, with its sets, costumes, orchestras and speakers, has begun to take shape on the stage of the City Theatre.
A strong impression of depth and three-dimensionality has been sought for the soundscape. According to their design philosophy, Nazimov and Myllyrinne want to avoid point sound sources and prefer to create sound fields that “breathe in the same rhythm”.
Starring an actor
For a musical, Rebecca offers little joyful dancing and singing, but even more excitement – at the end, the stage is on fire. Of course, Hitchcock’s legacy haunts the background.
“The music is a rugged gothic vibe. Sometimes it plays a little and then we go that the punts flutter,” Myllyrinne promises.
The sound equipment of the City Theatre was renewed for Rebecca, and now the auditorium is playing even more proudly.
“However, the intention is not to look for a louder voice, but a bigger voice. There is a big difference,” Nazimov points out.
Nazimov mixes the wireless microphones of an ensemble of more than 30 actors, and Myllyrinne mixes the 18-man orchestra. The complex ensemble can be controlled by two pairs of ears and four hands, as long as the mixing desks and equipment racks are pre-programmed with the right settings for each scene. The third sound man assists the actors with microphones on the side stage.
Nazimov and Myllyrinne remind us of the number one rule of high-quality musical theatre: it is important to know the actors’ positions on stage in order to be able to dynamically delay, equalize and echo the speaker system. This way, speech and singing always sound from the actor’s mouth – not from the speakers.
Movie on stage
Myllyrinne has returned to a musical gig at the City Theatre after a long time, it has been more than a decade since the last performance. It turns out that the two have a shared history when the two are inspired to reminisce about the “spy trips” to London in the early part of the last decade – to West End theaters and, among other things, the Autograph sound movie, which is now known as a guarantee of the quality of musical sound, from the Cats to The Lion King.
The duo, who still swear by the sound aesthetics adopted on those trips, strive for a natural and warm sound, and favor simple and stylish solutions in sound design.
Nazimov takes a leap from memories to the present and says that he has recently been to London again to listen to the world.
“It seems that we are entering the digital world. Cadac counters have disappeared in many places – but the sound booths are still even bigger because they are now so full of other machinery,” Nazimov wonders.
Nazimov has reservations about the current trends in the musical voice. The warm basic sound seems to be lost in the West End as well.
“The new stuff has a much more artificial sound with effects and surround. We are talking about big compromises if we abandon such basic things as that the focus must be on the stage, or that the localization of the voice is mastered.”
“Nowadays, people have movie theaters at home as well, which is probably why the audience’s expectations of the theater’s auditory image are high, we should be even better here,” Myllyrinne takes up Nazimov’s reflection. “People come to the theatre to get a cinematic rhythm and new tricks.”
From lightman to firefighter
Like the sound system, the trend of visual special effects in the theatre world is also moving in the direction of cinematic expression – audiences expect to see live on stage the tricks, flies and explosions familiar from action films.
Markku “Make” Ahonen, who conjures up special effects for the City Theatre, sets the stage on fire in the musical Rebecca. Ahonen, who started out as a lighting man, has over the years focused especially on pyrotechnics. Rebecca’s fire scene is exceptional in Finnish terms in terms of scale.
In general, the visual solutions of the Finnish version of Rebecca set the bar high from the start. According to Ahonen, the planning team agreed not to flatten the highlight of the thriller musical with any flame videos, but to use real fire and enough to create a genuine sense of danger.
The biggest problem to be solved arises from the fact that the palpable “sense of danger” should not actually pose a risk to the performers, the technology or the spectators. The most arduous work for Ahonen in designing Rebecca’s special effects was to investigate the legal basis for the use of fire effects with the authorities.
“Especially LPG bulbs have very strict regulations and regulations. Hoses, fittings, igniters, valves – everything must comply with the standards,” Ahonen lists.
Three teas
Ahonen has a three-point guideline in his work: safety, functionality and artistry. This is the order when playing with fire and ammunition.
At first, we had to make sure with the set designer that the critical places on the set were fireproof. Molton fabrics also had to be replaced. Old dusty theatre curtains would be a fire hazard due to rising heat.
In addition to the set design, the musical’s large manor burning scene sets requirements for the costumes of the actors moving in the middle of the flames. The clothes of the actors in the scene are flame retardant, and the outfits that end up in the worst furnace must also be made of wool.
“Wool is a material that burns very poorly, and cotton is also quite good. Synthetic fibres must not be worn under any circumstances, as they can flare up or melt into the skin.”
A keen eye
Ahonen, who designed the pyro effects, also runs the effects himself in the performances. His position is close to the actors but hidden from the eyes of the audience. In the performance, a man hangs behind the limit of the stage opening, at the end of a shaky ladder on the service platform on the third floor. There is an unobstructed view of the stage.
Ahonen remotely controls effects and starts fires with MA-Lighting’s table and wireless bomb controller. The situations are programmed on the table, and the exact strikes are marked in the notebook when each effect is triggered. Ahonen hears the beats from the ear monitor, but it is more important to keep an eye on it to make sure that everything goes as rehearsed on stage.
“You can’t go blindly with the attacks. If you paint devils on the walls, something can always go wrong, someone can even fall down the stairs when they have lights on. But such things are minimized with hard training, which is the alpha and omega of everything. No one should be left with the feeling that they are working at risk limits every night.”
A big musical can run a hundred times, so repeatability poses its own challenges to the design of pyro effects. Effects equipment must be made so that it can withstand dozens of performances and is easy to maintain. In a repertoire theatre, everything must also be easy to dismantle and set up.
Tricks with teamwork
In recent years, the ‘special effects’ department has been heavily marched onto the stage – from pyrotechnics to snow and wind machines and projection effects. Compared to a film, the effects and tricks of a live performance are also made more demanding by the fact that there is no camera that would limit the viewer’s point of view. In the theatre, lights and other tricks are used to ensure that the trick does not fail.
Ahonen recalls the effects he made for the hit musicals before Rebecca. The cannons were banging in the producers and the pistol was fired through the book. Together with magician Tatu Tyni, Beauty and the Beast were conjured up spectacular disappearances and floats.
“For example, when the Beast turns into a prince, the switch is masked with a quick silent cloud of smoke and a flash.”
When you add lights and sound effects to the pyro effects, and of course the trick itself, the illusion is complete. The cooperation of many people must coincide in the same blink of an eye for the end result to work seamlessly and make jaws drop in the audience.
“Everything is practiced so well that it always hits the mark. It’s not enough to succeed sometimes, you have to be able to give the viewers the same experience every night.”
Ahonen sums up that making special effects for theatre is starting to be on the same level as in the film industry.
“In the theatre, everything is just more difficult when there is no second take.”