May 30, 2003

By Ed Siegel, Globe Staff
Boston Globe

CAMBRIDGE - The American Repertory Theatre closes a very impressive first season under its new leadership by proving that the whole is certainly greater than the sum of its parts. Most of the individual contributions to "The Sound of a Voice," particularly by its two chief architects, composer Philip Glass and playwright David Henry Hwang, are not all that noteworthy. Yet the two one-act operas add up to an evening that, like the Japanese ghost stories that inspired them, haunt one's dreams.

The ART production is particularly adept at capturing the air of sadness that pervades Japanese ghost stories and films, the sense that humanity is doomed to seek what it can't have and reject anything that's within reach. Hwang and Glass honor that sensibility while adding a contemporary spin - sort of samurais are from Mars, geishas are from Venus.

Two separate stories, "The Sound of a Voice" and "Hotel of Dreams," make up the evening. The first is the more effective because of its uncanny ability to merge the supernatural atmosphere of ghost stories with a more naturalistic love story - or lack of love story. A man comes to a forest where a woman lives alone. Is he there to kill her? To seduce or be seduced? Is she a witch?

Robert Woodruff, the ART's new artistic director, has staged a number of great epic productions here, but "The Sound of a Voice" is much more of a chamber work, with simple but striking Zen-like sets by Robert Israel and a mixed East-West quartet featuring Wu Man on pipa, which looks and sounds like a cross between a guitar and sitar.

The focal point of this first story, though, is Suzan Hanson's beautiful portrayal, both as actor and singer, of the woman. As she attends to her visitor, the question becomes whether she's a ghost incapable of human contact or whether it's the men who have come to her who are unable to accept her grace and strength. She proves to be a physically adept woman who can also lay out a seductive tune on her flute-like instrument. Don't expect any "Madame Butterfly"-like arias from her or anyone else, but her singing is nonetheless heartbreaking.

Herbert Perry has the less interesting, more stereotypical role of the macho man. He peers into her house - a small, leaning structure that looks like a box kite - which the audience can also see inside of on occasion through a transparent scrim. He's looking for proof of her witchcraft and, indeed, finds himself bewitched by her strange beauty.

Glass has been particularly guilty lately of overpowering material with music, particularly in films such as "The Hours" and his new score to the Bela Lugosi classic "Dracula" - neither he nor Hwang are as trustful of silence as they should be.

Glass's musical language also seems to be shrinking rather than growing, but if the motifs in "The Sound of a Voice" aren't all that new, at least the accents are.

Hwang's libretto is also overly chatty, feeling the need to constantly inject dull, song-speak mundanities into the mix. Granted, it's "the sound of a voice" that the woman is lonely for, but the sounds that the man and woman make can be bland for long stretches of time.

And yet it all comes together. There are subtle touches in Hwang's storytelling, too, and he does a particularly masterful job of balancing elements. He continues to explore questions of gender with the detail that he brought to his 1988 Tony-winning play, "M. Butterfly." If he is too despairing of people's potential to connect, then at least he moves the debate onto a more imaginative plane. It is the whole, kinetic structure, though - the yellowish lighting in the woman's house, the economy of movement and set design, the contrasts of colors, the Asian instruments - that keep "The Sound of a Voice" memorably afloat.

The same is true in "Hotel of Dreams," even if the story isn't as interesting. Here an elderly writer visits a madame - although whether her house is one of ill-repute remains to be seen. He keeps coming back, mesmerized by the different women he sleeps with - though how much more they do than sleep together is unknown.

The other singing Perry brother, Eugene, carries this action. His motivations and reactions maintain the suspense, but Hwang's exploration of aging and dreaming is nothing special, though Glass's music is more melodically engrossing, particularly when Wu Man is featured. Janice Felty's character isn't nearly as intriguing as Hanson's in the first story, but her performance is strong.

"Hotel of Dreams" would seem like a better opener than closer. It's "The Sound of a Voice" that has the real power to follow you home.

Ed Siegel can be reached at siegel@globe.com