The Sound And The Fury

by Samela Harris

FEW Australians have not read eminent American writer William Faulkner or don’t know who he is.

So they are prepared for the fact that a reading of the first part of The Sound and the Fury will not be the average fireside storytime, albeit there is quite a bit of fireside in the storyline. But it is a nonlinear story told by an idiot – and signifying everything.

Benjy Compson is almost mute and severely retarded. We’d deem him autistic. He loves gazing at the fire, making repetitive sounds, holding onto the gate, and keeping his world safe in a predictable routine. In this piece of writing, Faulkner imagines a world as Benjy may experience and recall it — chronologically erratic, myriad fragmentary impressions, small moments made huge, love and security identified by smell…

Yet, out of his jumble of memories emerges an intense picture of family life — a Mississippi family of decaying gentility. His mother has retreated to bed and he is largely raised through the years of the book, from 1898 to 1928, by siblings and servants. The large cast of the Elevator Repair Service USA depicts all of this on a massive spread of a living-cum-dining room, pure period Americana down to its wooden walls and excess of standard lamps.

It is a gorgeous set. The actors switch and swap in roles and time-frames. There are two Benjys. There are mixed accents, sometimes strongly Southern, sometimes not. There are spurts of aberrant quasi Appalachian dance. There is dialogue delivered as dialogue and dialogue delivered as text.

There is text simply read or a narrator adding the speech attributions of “Caddy said, Jason said, Mother said…” The New York production is delivering Faulkner as he comes, famously stream-of-consiousness and famously beautiful in language. These attributions become the rhythm of the play, like a preacher’s reiteration or rap. They are oddly contenting while the emerging status quo of the family is deeply disturbing.

They are a pretty nasty, dysfunctional and self-absorbed lot and their domestic world from Benjy’s headspace is claustrophobic. There also is a soundscape, noises off, sometimes the sounds of Benjy’s pain. Sound itself is sophisticated and complex, adding elements of intimacy to sections of pure reading as well as bedlam in the house.

Benjy’s chapter ever was challenging and so is this production. It also is very long and, however hard one tries to be on top of it, it remains confusing. Yet one leaves the theatre awash with vivid images and feeling quite nourished — ready to discuss the play all night.

 

View the original article on the Advertiser website here .