“Stereophonic” review: Drama from the studio enters the stage, and it's a hit

David Adjami's rock and roll tale with music from Will Butler nails all the right notes.

“It is a torture to need people,” says a character at one point in Stereophonic, now playing at the Golden Theatre on Broadway after an initial fall run at Playwrights Horizons. If that is so, imagine needing to be stuck in a recording studio with them for a full year.

You don’t have to imagine it at all, because Stereophonic puts the audience smack dab in that studio alongside a band on the cusp of stardom as they begin work on their next album. And what transpires is a searing, almost documentary-like portrait of what transpires when artistic expression ends up on a collision course with controlling perfectionism, and whether relationships inside the studio walls can survive complications from outside it — and vice versa.

David Adjmi’s play takes us back to 1976 to spy on a curiously never actually named five-piece hard at work. Peter (Tom Pecinka) leads the band, but there could potentially be jealousy brewing when his girlfriend and fellow vocalist Diana (Sarah Pidgeon) writes a hit song. Another couple in the group — bass player Reg (The Marvelous Mrs. Maisel’s Will Brill) and keyboardist Holly (Succession’s Juliana Canfield) — are on the verge of divorce due to Reg’s drinking and drugging. Rounding out the group is Simon (Chris Stack), the drummer/manager/stabilizing force who usually manages to keep his cool— as long as no one is forcing him to use a click track.

Joining them in the studio are engineers Grover (Eli Gelb) and Charlie (Andrew R. Butler) — mostly just trying to make it out of the experience alive while attempting to keep the group from imploding at every turn. (They don’t have much luck with that second part.)

Any description of a 1970s band with multiple romantic relationships coming apart at the seams can’t help but spur memoires of Fleetwood Mac — and, by extension, Daisy Jones and the Six — but Stereophonic hits all the right notes to perfectly convey the rollercoaster ride of recording an album as it alternates between the madness (engineers leaving a mic hot so they can listen in on a breakup) and the mundane (taking six days to properly tune a snare drum). It's a situation that marries high drama with high boredom.

The first two acts of the 185-minute runtime inject some welcome levity into the proceedings before things get too heavy. Brill steals early scenes as the drug-addled Reg, portraying a “sad man in a blanket” who has trouble searching for words as he explains his sudden obsession with houseboats, while Gelb and Butler shine as the Burt and Ernie-type pair behind the board, even as one disapproves of the other lying about his true working relationship with the Eagles.

The show’s second half turns more ominous as Peter’s obsessive control-freak nature alienates the rest of the outfit. His attitude is neatly summed up during an argument with Simon when he tells the drummer, “When we’re done with this process, you will kiss my hand and thank me.” Pecinka plays the bandleader as cold and distant, even when it comes to his relationship with Diana, who does not feel supported either romantically or artistically. Pidgeon turns her character’s heartbreak into a signature moment while nailing a difficult vocal after a brutal argument. It's a moving triumph after tragedy for a singer who noted earlier, "I have no self-confidence."

The darker tones of the show’s final stretch are briefly interrupted by an uncomfortably hilarious moment when a feuding Peter and Diana have to record a gorgeous and gentle vocal overdub harmony with Holly — coming off not unlike a pair of news anchors yelling at each other before breaking out into huge grins just as the red “On Air” sign lights up.

And then there is the music itself. Stereophonic is billed as a “play with music” as opposed to a musical. The catchy, era-appropriate original songs were written by Arcade Fire’s Will Butler, and they are seamlessly integrated into the story and recording studio process. Instead of being presented with fully formed pieces, you hear the tunes as they unfold during the writing process. It’s like watching Paul McCartney working out soon-to-be-famous riffs in The Beatles: Get Back, and this transformation of a song right before your eyes (and ears) is truly thrilling. It helps that the cast’s impressive musical chops — and voices — are more than up to the task.

The scenic design by David Zinn (who did the same for two other new shows this season: The Notebook and An Enemy of People) puts you right in the studio with the band. Most of the action takes place in the wood-paneled control room on the front half of the stage where the band and engineers mix and mingle — discussing the right levels as well as such varied topics as Olympic swimming and Julie Christie’s buttocks. Behind that is the glass-enclosed sound room where the music and other action comes to life. Meanwhile, costume designer Enver Chakartash’s '70s duds — including a kimono, suspenders, and lots of bell bottoms — appropriately set both the era and the mood.

At over three hours long, Stereophonic never feels like too much. And the extended runtime works to the show’s advantage in that it puts the audience into marathon mode with the band itself as they approach a year of recording and re-recording. It’s a riveting, painful, funny, intense, toe-tapping journey, and the end result can best be described as solid gold. A

Related content:

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• Daniel Radcliffe comes unglued singing 'Franklin Shepard Inc.' in Merrily We Roll Along

• Lempicka review: The artist’s life is painted with broad and messy brush strokes in new musical

Read the original article on Entertainment Weekly.