31 Down
BERRNNARRDD HERRMANN
July 2004
Bernard Herrmann Ryan Holsopple
Martin Scorcese Toots
Louise Fletcher Helen Tremble
With:
Wife 2 Rachel Shukert
Wife 3 Margaret Rose Champagne
Hitchcock's Secretary Shauna Kelly
Operator Karen Koontz
Sound distorter: Radio Ruido
Band:
Matt Bua,Effects
Andrew Piper,Bass
Matt Bassett,Drums
Script by Ryan Holsopple and Zachery Oberzan
Design and direction by Ryan Holsopple
BERRNARRDD HERRMANN is a play set in the last hour in the life of Bernard Herrmann. The famous movie composer that made soundtracks for such famous film as PSYCHO, North By Northwest and Citizen Kane was now living with his third wife in London. He had been brought out of retirement by three young filmmakers from New York (Larry Cohen, Brian Depalma and Martin Scorsese) and Francois Truffaut in France. He was pushing even harder in the last years of his life to the point of an unhealthy breakdown. The younger generations recognized his genius and were quick to cast their movies into cinema immortality at the expense of an aging composer.
Bernard Herrmann finished recording the score for the film Taxi Driver the night he died, never to see the final product, possibly the greatest of all his scores!
Bernard Herrmann was married to his first wife, Louise Fletcher, while he was composing for Orson Wells Mercury Players, which did the famous radio play "War of the Worlds" with a score by Benny himself. Louise Fletcher went on to write one of the greatest radio plays of all times, "Sorry Wrong Number." in which an invalid housewife meets her own demise by eavesdropping on phone conversations. This one-woman show with only her voice audible on one end of a phone conversation was to become the template for 31 Down's reconstruction.
31 Down takes a glance into what may have happened this final night. Using inspired dialogue from Taxi Driver, the imagined telephone conversations of the women in Benny's life and a live band.
Tune (IN))) Santa Fe