The Washington PostDemocracy Dies in Darkness

‘Matilda’ complaints reflect Kennedy Center’s acoustic issues

January 8, 2016 at 11:44 a.m. EST
A perfect storm of acoustical dissonance can prevent many theatergoers from comprehending a play’s full story line, as it did for “Matilda.” (Bendik Kaltenborn for The Washington Post)

It had all the makings of a holiday smash — a plucky young heroine and a youthful ensemble in a darkly funny Roald Dahl tale — but instead the national tour of “Matilda” brought out the Grinch in many patrons. The culprit: muddled sound that prevented many theatergoers from comprehending the story as it unfolded on the Kennedy Center’s Opera House stage.

Kennedy Center officials heard many complaints about the sound in the hall, a 2,300-seat venue designed for opera voices that aren't amplified. So did The Post after theater critic Peter Marks blasted the sound quality in his Dec. 20 review. Most patrons reported that the show's highly amplified sound was incomprehensible, preventing them from following the action.

“We were so disturbed by the whole experience,” said Kay Heiden of McLean, who went with her husband Dec. 15, the first night of the four-week, 32-performance run. “It was a major disappointment.”

Heiden’s experience was echoed by many others who used words like “exhausting” and “frustrating” to describe an evening of straining to follow along with the action onstage. Theater officials responded by posting a notice about uneven sound quality on their website and by distributing lyrics sheets — “at the recommendation of the producers,” they said — to patrons entering the theater.

They and staff from the touring production worked to improve the sound quality during the run, although neither group would say exactly what they did to make it better.

Sound problems in the Opera House are not new. Audiences recall similar issues understanding the dialogue and lyrics in “Evita,” “Billy Elliot,” “Hair” and “Wicked” — all Broadway tours that were stage here in recent years.

But “Matilda” was the worst yet, they said. The show — with its cast of cockney-accented kids — features its own slate of aural challenges that proved difficult to overcome. Add those issues to the Opera House’s acoustics, and the result was disappointing for many.

“I couldn’t understand it at all,” said Rick Kellogg, a subscriber who was sitting “in the third row, dead center” on Christmas Eve. “It wasn’t that loud. It was muddy. There’s no excuse.”

Hall pass

The Opera House is fantastic for opera, which should come as no surprise. That non-amplified art form thrives in the space, where sound bounces off acoustic panels and circles back to the front. A 2003 renovation removed sound-dampening carpet from under the seats and replaced it with wood. “They wanted to increase the intelligibility of the hall,” explained Ellery Brown, the Kennedy Center’s senior vice president of operations.

But those hard surfaces can actually make it hard for amplified systems. “The sound is designed to reverberate around the room, so it seems full and big, and for the sound to come back to the stage so performers can hear themselves,” sound designer Brad Berridge said, speaking about concert halls and opera houses in general.

“In older venues built for singers, if you introduce a large Broadway show sound system, the room is fighting against you,” said Berridge, who has worked for theaters across the country.

Add in the Opera House’s deep balconies and boxes and the job of creating a uniform sound can be daunting. With time and technical know-how, it can be accomplished, which is why the sound at Kennedy Center productions — like the Honors — is usually fine.

Tour guide

A road show like “Matilda” is different.

The production trucks its equipment from one venue to the next, sometimes mixing its pieces in with the house equipment and sometimes not. Some theaters have one balcony; others have multiple decks and boxes. The number of seats changes dramatically, too. Having one system that must adapt to various spaces requires some compromises, sound experts say.

“You have to have equipment for all those rooms,” Berridge said. “It’s a Herculean task to figure out what is needed to accommodate not only Washington, but also Toronto and San Francisco.”

And then there’s time — or lack of it. The production opens at a new venue days after leaving the last one, leaving the engineers little time to “tune” the building. While Brown said the Kennedy Center is the final arbiter and can insist on lowering the volume or asking for changes, it can’t always get it right from the start. The final sound check is completed in an empty hall, and thus will not be the same hours later when bodies fill the space.

“On Broadway, you have time, a lot of time, to make it fit into the building,” said David Budries, chairman of the sound design department at Yale University’s School of Drama. “On a tour, you’re more ‘wham, bam thank you ma’am.’ You’ve planned your system, you have to trust the people you’ve hired to deliver the system, to make the judgments.

“They can go in and ask for refitting — ‘we’re not hitting the boxes’ — but there is a real cost to that,” Budries said. “There’s an economic part of it and an artistic part that have to be balanced.”

After hearing questions and complaints about “Matilda,” Kennedy Center officials addressed the issue on the “Frequently Asked Questions” section of its website. “Some touring productions have occasionally had difficulty with sound in this venue. Touring theater productions bring their own sound equipment and operators, which can be challenging with regard to audio clarity due to a variety of factors, such as a combination of audio equipment selections made for the overall tour (which are not venue-specific) as well as audio operator choices.”

Audiences are not sympathetic. “It could be a tour problem,” said Dan Roek of Alexandria. “But at the very least, ‘Matilda’ in the Kennedy Center is a Kennedy Center problem.”

Add accents

The British import is chock full of cockney accents, a way of speaking that can be difficult to understand because it tends to soften consonants and blur words together.

“I experienced this when I did a production of ‘My Fair Lady,’ ” Berridge said. “The accents used in the show are not what is native to our ears as an American audience.”

Budries said good vocal coaching is critical to maximize comprehension while maintaining the show’s artistic vision. “You need good vocal coaching to making sure there’s articulation and attention is paid,” he said.

This has been the focus of the producers, according to spokesman Scott Praefke.

“The adjustments in sound made specifically while in each venue involve manipulating both the house sound and touring sound equipment,” Praefke said in a statement. “We are aware that a small percentage of the audience have a particular problem understanding the fast-sung lyrics of some songs performed by the ensemble child actors in an unfamiliar English accent and this, in particular, we have worked to improve in each venue.”

The interpreter

As much as a good ear is required to tune a house, so is a good ear on the sound board. The mix engineer — “the interpreter of the sound design,” according to Budries — may not be familiar enough with the Opera House to anticipate its challenges and respond.

“There’s an art to it. The mix engineer hasn’t gotten used to the venue yet and is still learning, and as a result it may take a few days before it really turns into a routine performance,” he said.

Voices of children

Another hurdle is the fact that the production centers on children. Children’s voices are in a higher frequency, which is difficult for some to hear. And because they are often more inexperienced, child actors can be inconsistent, and that creates situations the sound board engineer must address on the fly, experts say.