A three-hour play about an unnamed 1970s band recording an album, set entirely in the recording studio: That’s, essentially, the elevator pitch for Stereophonic, which just opened on Broadway after a sold-out 10-week run at Playwrights Horizons in late 2023. But that doesn’t even begin to describe the genius on display at the Golden Theatre.
David Adjmi’s play follows a Fleetwood Mac–esque band—married bassist Reg (Will Brill) and keyboardist-vocalist Holly (Juliana Canfield), drummer-manager Simon (Chris Stack), and guitarist-singer Peter (Tom Pecinka) and lead singer Diana (Sarah Pidgeon), also a couple—over one year, two studios, and various breakups, breakdowns, coke binges, drunken displays…and somewhere between all of that they manage to record a banger of an album, with a little help from sound engineers/emotional punching bags Grover (Eli Gelb) and Charlie (Andrew R. Butler).
The songs themselves aren’t really the point of Stereophonic; we hear almost all of them only in snippets, and they’re all performed behind a glass window. (Extra kudos to sound designer Ryan Rumery, who manages to bring out every blazing riff and power chord.) They are, however, all originals, written by Will Butler of Arcade Fire fame, and all fantastic; the official cast recording will be released May 10 digitally and June 14 on CD.
[Read Bob Verini’s ★★★★★ review here.]
The in-between stuff, the non-musical moments, are what interests Adjmi. There’s Reg’s beautifully bizarre pot-fueled riff on Sausalito houseboats: “They’re like kinetic sculpture. It’s like Mecca! It’s like the mountain! It’s like mythology!” Peter’s casual dismissal of his Olympic champ swimmer brother (“He’s good, but I think he’s a little overpraised”). Holly’s realization that Reg’s drinking and drugging has gotten out of hand: “I’m not wiping your face anymore in the middle of the night so you don’t choke on your vomit. I’m not coming to the pub at 4 am to pick you off the floor.” Peter’s callous critiques of Diana, one of which comes after the band locks in a flawless version of her slow-burn ballad “Bright”: “Your ego is getting in the way. And you need to decide if you’re gonna be a mediocre songwriter or push it to the next level.” That’s when we realize that Diana is a rising star à la Stevie Nicks, and if the men at the label know what’s good for them, they’ll offer her a solo album; Peter realizes it too, and he suggests that they have a baby (“I think it’ll make us closer”). Pidgeon is especially wrenching in this scene.
If you know Adjmi’s work, you know he’s a skilled satirist: Think of 3C, his sexed-up send-up of Three’s Company; his highly comic Marie Antoinette, in which the French queen periodically chats with a prophetic sheep; and his tea-sipping society-matron monologue Elective Affinities. Stereophonic does take a few (deserved) jabs at the music industry—the giant bag of cocaine, for instance—but Adjmi is delving into much, much more: ambition, creation, the quest for perfection, the arduous artistic process, the price of fame… There’s a reason the show is three hours. (Check out The Beatles: Get Back, which follows the Fab Four as they were making the 1970 album Let It Be. The three episodes of the Peter Jackson–directed docuseries total nearly 8 hours!)
Could Stereophonic have lost five minutes here or there? Maybe. Could director Daniel Aukin have tightened up the pace a bit? Perhaps. But as one character explains: “Music isn’t supposed to be perfect. It’s not about that. It’s about relating to each other; and making something from your soul.”
Stereophonic opened on Broadway April 19, 2024, at the Golden Theatre and runs through January 12, 2025. Tickets and information: stereophonicplay.com
