This article includes spoilers that may impact your experience of the production.
What’s your role as Composer & Sound Designer?
My role shifts considerably between different productions. Some shows call for a strongly musical score, while others rely on a more abstract soundscape – West Gate sits closer to the latter. These approaches are sometimes shaped by the script and at other times by the director’s vision. More often, however, I try to let the work itself indicate what it needs, allowing aural decisions to emerge from within the piece. I am a strong advocate for the expressive use of silence, and when a work requires it, I see it as my responsibility to support and protect that choice.
How do music and sound design help build the world of this show?
How do we stage the collapse of a bridge without physically collapsing a bridge on stage? One answer is to place the event in darkness, allowing sound to carry the weight of the moment, so that the audience hears the horror while the mind’s eye fills in the gaps. This approach is common in horror cinema, where much of the narrative and emotional labour is carried by the soundtrack: the sound of knives slicing, bones breaking, or the moment of silence that precedes a jump scare.
West Gate is staged in a deliberately minimal way, which means that sound and lighting must work together to construct the world of the play. Sound is used to place heavy machinery in close proximity, to suggest cranes moving overhead, and to situate characters within the enclosed space of a box girder, where steel strains and groans.
In another scene, set in a pub in the 1970s, sound must establish the presence of a crowded room, with voices competing to be heard over one another. Similarly, in moments depicting meetings, sound extends the space by creating the impression of more people than are physically present on stage.
The most complex sequence is the collapse itself: the sound of steel bending, concrete breaking apart, falling debris, and the screams and cries of the workers. My aim in this moment was to make the audience feel as though the theatre itself were collapsing around them.
How does sound design help with the storytelling?
As with the previous examples, sound plays a central role in constructing the world beyond the production’s minimal staging. In the opening scene, the audience is placed within a workers’ safety meeting at the site. Although the number of performers on stage is limited, the scene needs to convey the presence of twenty or more voices. To achieve this, the actors will pre-record additional dialogue, each taking on multiple roles, which will then be played back through speakers positioned in the wings. These vocal elements are cued individually, allowing the live performers to respond and interact with them as though a much larger group of actors were present on stage.
Does the musical language shift for Frankie's kitchen in the same way the design becomes more realistic?
The first half of the play contains little to no musical score. This is a deliberate choice, intended to support the realism of the situation, where the inherent drama of the action does not require musical emphasis. When we are introduced to Frankie, however, the focus of the play begins to shift towards a more emotional register. At this point, moments of music are introduced to mark this transition, allowing the audience to fully experience the emotional weight that has been built throughout the first half of the work.
What kinds of sounds/instruments/effects should we listen for in your design?
Listen for the creaks and groans of metal and the snapping of bolts; these sounds are intended to emerge from a deliberately stripped-back piano, prepared to produce the raw, mechanical textures required for the piece.
Kelly Ryall recording sounds for West Gate. Photos: Emily Doyle