SOUND INSPIRATION

Court Theatre’s William Massolia has a conversation with playwright David Henry Hwang about the creation and inspiration for THE SOUND OF A VOICE.

WM: I know the THE SOUND OF A VOICE is inspired by Japanese fairy tales/myth/ghost stories and art. What originally attracted you to this subject matter?

DHH: I wrote the original play on which this opera was based in the early-1980’s, when I was in my early 20’s. I was then, as now, interested in art and aesthetics which fused Eastern and Western sensibilities. At that time, the most interesting “fusion” work was coming from Japan, since the Japanese had had more than a century to absorb and incorporate Western values, whereas China at that point was just emerging from a long period of isolation. So I spent a lot of time reading and studying Japanese literature and film. These stories were inspired by those works.

WM: Is their any specific origin to THE SOUND OF A VOICE that we can look at?

DHH: It’s a piece that is inspired by many different sources. Some that come to mind are Kwaidan (both the book and movie), Woman in the Dunes, the films of Shinoda, and the novels of Mishima and Kawabata.

WM: What is the book Kwaidan about? Could you tell us how that story relates to THE SOUND OF A VOICE?

DHH: Kwaidan is actually a series of stories which were gathered by the 19th-century folklorist and Japanologist Lafcadio Hearn, who originally published his book in 1904, under the subtitle “stories and studies of strange things.” It became a movie directed by Masaki Kobayashi, which received an Oscar nomination for Best Foreign Film in 1965. In general, the stories told often involve encounters between human beings and spirits, who take form in surprising ways. For instance, the tale “In a Cup of Tea” tells of a samurai who sees a smiling face in the water he’s about to drink. The DVD of Kwaidan is available through Amazon.com.

WM: You’ve worked with Philip Glass before. How is this piece different or like the other collaborations you’ve done with him?

DHH: This is the first time we’ve ever adapted an earlier work of mine into an opera. So in a way, the task for me was somewhat less demanding than in our other projects, where I composed an entirely new, original libretti. In this case, I simply took my play and edited it down so that the text was less dense, and therefore more suitable for singing than speaking.

WM: You’ve said this work is influenced from playwrights like Pinter. Could you talk a little bit about that?

DHH: The reference to Pinter really has to do with the use of silences. Oftentimes in Pinter, important moments of dramatic action take place in the pauses between speeches or dialogue. In a way, this sensibility dovetails nicely with my perception of Japanese aesthetics, where what is not said is often at least as important as what is said. Therefore, particularly in Sound, the silences convey action as much as the text.

WM: What do you feel are some of the universal messages or themes in THE SOUND OF A VOICE?

DHH: I think both operas are basically about isolation, and the difficulty of contact between human beings, particularly in the context of romantic relationships. In both works, the women characters are defined by certain preconceptions that the men bring to the encounter, and these stereotypes become self-fulfilling prophecies. In some sense, the men and the women in these pieces are oppressed by expectations imposed upon their respective genders, which largely preclude the possibility of real intimacy and long-term happiness.

WM: How do you think contemporary audiences will relate to the piece?

DHH: I think that the dilemma of human isolation is quite universal, and not at all lessened by contemporary life. In fact, I would argue that industrialization and the pace of urban existence has actually intensified the difficulty we have making real contact with one another and achieving true intimacy. More recent innovations such as cellphones and the internet only intesify the irony and pain of being constantly connected, yet still struggling to find even one other voice we can truly know.