Through a Glass Darkly - Almeida Theatre

Ruth Wilson, Michael Attenborough and Dimitri Leonidas in rehearsalPhoto: Bridget JonesWe spoke to Sound Designer and Music Composer, Dan Jones, on what sounddesign involves for a theatre production and his process of creating thesoundtrack for Through a Glass Darkly.Almeida Projects: Where do you start when composing music for a theatre production?Dan Jones: For Through a Glass Darkly I am both writing the music and designing the sound and Ithink Mike and I agreed immediately that the music should be an extension of the sound. So it wasfirstly a question of what the sound needed to do.In many ways the sound for this production is a kind of sonic horizon drawing mostly on the naturalworld. It is a world in which there is an extraordinary potency in the sparseness of the environment.It is almost as if people might become crushed by it, by its remoteness, a sort of terrifying beauty,with an effortless power. Very elemental. So I began to think of elemental things, water and wind, thetrees and birds. It sounds very simple, but in Bergman's films, these things are imbued with a kindof primordial power, and that has very much to do with the way he treated the sound. Heunderstood more clearly than most how stripping back the sound track was far more captivatingthan the constant addition of extra ingredients. So much commercial film is about constant addition.Whilst we are not trying to remake his film, I think that legacy lives on, certainly as an aspiration,because of the power of the setting itself, the island. The job of the sound is to extend the horizon ofthat world beyond the immediate power of the set design.The music, if you can separate it, is intended to be an extension of all these ideas, but in particularserves to illustrate Karin’s perspective. I don’t think it should be a comment on her, but instead away of trying to see what she sees and how she feels without judgement.AP: How long does the process take – do ideas come to you organically? Or do you schedule in timeto work on something like this?Interview with Dan JonesDJ: It's a bit of both. The American composer John Adams has put it very clearly that you cannot waitto be inspired, you simply have to go to work, fail, fail a bit more. I think it's a bit like mining forgemstones, you have to dig out a lot of stuff before you get to the good bits (I speak for myself). Forthat reason I tend to brainstorm and write quite a lot of ideas quickly and intuitively. I can go backrefine and 'curate' them at a later stage, often ditching quite a lot or putting ideas to one side forResource Pack: Through A Glass Darkly by Ingmar Bergman 28