Review: NOISE at Wilbury Theatre Group

Get ready for the most original production you will ever witness-interactive from beginning to end-but one that will make you think long after the music has stopped.

Wilbury Theatre Group celebrated the Rhode Island Premiere of a new musical by Cesar Alvarez, a "musical in the making" as they call it, where 13 musicians gather, pondering what music they could create for a society they would want to live in.  

The production starts with a somewhat long-sometimes funny introduction that is trying to set the stage for the original show you are about to witness.  The musicians gather and recite why society isn't working for them today, whether its a sense of isolation they feel or many other examples like "my landlord raised my rent for no reason" to feeling bad "for studying art as a first gen" college student.  What is wrong in your world like that?  Likely plenty.

The group wants to create new music to coincide with a place and people they want to live with and the audience becomes part of the production from the beginning to the very end, whether its just sitting on the stage talking with the other musicians or having the tables turn and the musicians take seats in the audience while they interact with the audience members now set up on stage.  Created by Alvarez, who was the mastermind behind  the 2018/2019 acclaimed show "Futurity" and directed by Dante Green, "Noise" is a celebration of music and a study of how we can all get along in an inclusive world, one without judgement or isolation, one where no one is invisible and "everyone feels a part of the show".

In one of the most emotional parts of the show, the musicians start reciting the shortcomings they've had in their lives and the group responds "I'm Fine With That", creating a world of forgiveness, a wonderful world removed of judgement where they also welcome the audience to do the same and many do.  It's a chance for all of us to be equal, all on the same level Playing Field, immersed in our faults and laughing and pondering them.

What can we all do to make this world we live in that kind of place?  Watching this musical is a start because it will get you thinking of a world you want to live in and how far off our present world is from that right now.  What can we do? 

In the end, in "We are Offering a Modest Proposal", the musicians come up with ways to get to a better world from where we are now and the audience, like always, is along for the ride.  All of us being part of the change is so refreshing it makes you long for it.

If you're looking for a play where you can hide in your seat for the two hours and 30 minute production(with one intermission), this perhaps is not for you.  They don't force you to participate or to come on the stage-you can do that of your own free will (and only 1-2 audience members decided to stay behind in their seats out of the 60 or so of us).  It's a wonderful perspective, one I wasn't expecting and was hesitant at first until my wife grabbed my hand(hey, we even got a slow dance in on stage in one part!) and whisked me on the stage with the other 98 percent of us. 

"Noise" makes you think about life, about your own faults and how you can fix them to make the world around you so much better not only for yourself but also the people you encounter every day.  You will never be the same after you see "Noise" and that's a damn good thing.  Now, more then ever, we need a better world around us and it all has to start somewhere.  Here and now and with each of us.  

Photo by Erin X Smithers

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