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Friday, August 21, 2015

Is it "Matilda" or is it the Sound Qualities at the 5th Avenue?

The 5th Avenue has the most peculiar sound issues. It's a huge house making bunches of money with the most subscribers in the ENTIRE AREA and yet touring shows come in there, like the newest, Matilda, and Oh God There's That Sound Problem Again.

It seems like the local sound folks have figured out - for the most part and Not Always - how to get around the bouncy, dispersing sound waves inside that building, because sometimes shows there are actually ones you can HEAR.

But it's not clear what has to happen to fix it all. What is clear is: It Needs Fixing. Please? 5th Avenue Folk? Please? Won't you please get some good sound engineers in there to examine the issue and help you all fix it so that the sound bounce doesn't keep impacting your shows? Especially the tours?

I figure the tours come in with their own sound people and By God, they just don't get it! So, at minimum, you must insist that your own sound people who have it half-way figured out Must Help Every Touring Show. Put it in the contract. Especially if you can't fix anything about it any time soon.

Anyone who goes to Matilda will come out mostly bamboozled by the lyrics to the songs and many of the mumbled plot elements because: British accents, small kids shrieking their guts out in High Treble (working so hard at it all and being as great as they can), bad sound bounce, do NOT equal "understanding the words."

Every person I spoke to on opening night could not understand a lot of the words. Some of them maybe saw the movie or heard the cast album ahead of time and they came prepared to understand.

In fact, there were some wonderful elements, particularly technical in lighting and special effects that were so fun and inviting! But every dang time, there was that issue. Sometimes, if one person was singing, one could hear and understand the lyrics. But any time it was more than one, fuggedabout it.

I was very much looking forward to Matilda! And now I just don't even know if I should tell anyone to go see it or not! Which is really, really disappointing, cuz it's really, really a stupid reason.

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