The Sound Inside

Bella Baird is a brilliant but brittle Ivy League creative writing professor. Christopher Dunn is her talented yet angry and somewhat mysterious student. Surrounded by real life and literary fiction, an unusual friendship grows between their two lonely souls. Then one winter’s day, Bella asks an unthinkable favour of Christopher and their figurative and literal bonds turn full circle.

With much of the text delivered in direct address to the audience, Dulcie Smart has a huge job to do in playing Bella and does so with the self-assurance of an accomplished international stage and screen actor. As Christopher, Kieran Charnock carefully carries the awkwardness and sometimes disingenuous nature of a young novelist struggling to find his identity and voice. 

Stella Reid’s tight and flowing direction makes the most of Meg Rollandi’s creative set design that allows multiple rooms, a bar, and a park to co-exist without need for walls. Natasha James’ moodily effective lighting design that employs three onstage lamps, plus top and side light through haze, emphasises the darkly multi-layered narrative. Thomas Arbor’s shapeshifting music and sound effects provide a pulsing sonic backdrop, most appreciably during the scenes where both actors are on stage. 

I appreciate the expressive and often lyrical writing, the exploration of the loneliness that sometimes accompanies high intelligence and literary sensibility, and the encircled creativity of the story. I would like to have seen Bella and Christopher interact more often and have more actual dialogue and less reported speech than Adam Rapp’s script gave them as their refreshingly non-sexual relationship unfolded. This I think would have allowed me to emotionally invest in the characters and their fates, rather than marvelling at their intellectual capabilities. Ultimately, The Sound Inside tugged more at my head than my heart.

With an award-nominated script, high production values, slick direction, and highly rated actors, The Sound Inside is a classy piece of theatre that will leave you with much to chew on and dissect.