From Christopher Kriz, Eclipsed Sound Designer

In playwright Danai Gurira’s production notes for Eclipsed, she writes “…the use of contemporary African music, hip hop and rap even, brings a texture that enhances the world as well as allowing male voices on the stage in ways that can be violent and jarring and a reminder of the world we do not see.”

This was one of the first things I read in preparing to design sound for Northlight’s production of Eclipsed. As there are no seen or heard male characters in the play, the notion that sound could provide an additional layer of subtext was immediately intriguing to me. As I began researching the music of Liberia, I was struck by how much American influence there is in their popular music. The Rap and Hip-hop artists, in particular, are so modeled after American music, that the only real difference is the performer’s dialect. We used a number of Liberian pieces to enhance the male presence in the play.

But we went a step further and decided to use radio broadcasts as a further device. There are a few broadcasts that are scripted by the playwright. We recorded those but then also added the broadcast readings of the missing that were so much a part of Liberian radio during this period. The use of these readings during scene transitions adds an even deeper layer of counterpoint to the play. As there were very few actual period recordings of this kind available, we recorded all of them ourselves.

Eclipsed is such an enlightening play; I was glad that sound could provide an important component.