The Room Sings

A room in a country house sings of those who have lived there over a span of 70 years. Performed with striking theatricality by Obie Award-winning Talking Band using an array of genres — ’40s noir, Chinese Ghost Tale, Chekhovian Farce andTragedy, and a Sicilian Puppet Opera sung by beavers — their stories intertwine and illumine each other.

The audience sees a multiple, fractured view of a place. We see the view through the room’s windows — a side porch, a lawn, a flower garden with a rose arbor, a pond with a dock — and the people who inhabit these settings. As the play unfolds, one setting comes into the foreground as another recedes. The scenes move on rolling platforms so we them not only from different distances but from different angles as well, and soon we comes to realize that we are seeing the characters not only from different points of view but also at different moments in time.