Review: THE SOUND INSIDE at Marin Theatre Company

The Sound Inside

Written by Adam Rapp

Directed by Jasson Minadakis

Marin Theatre Company

Two loners meet, bond, and become integrally entangled in Adam Rapp's beautiful tribute to authors and the spoken word in Marin Theatre Company's season closer The Sound Inside. This introspective two-hander, a West Coast premiere of Rapp's six-time 2020 Tony nominated drama, excels through director Jaason Minadakis' concentrated, minimal staging and stellar performances by Denmo Ibrahim as Professor Bella Lee Baird and Tyler Miclean as her student Christopher Dunn.

Bella addresses the audience directly, describing herself in self-deprecating humor- she's at best mediocre, a mid-level professor teaching inattentive millennials the craft of reading fiction. We learn she's been recently diagnosed with Stage II stomach cancer and she's taking alternative therapies to standard of care chemo after witnessing her mother waste away to nothing from a similar disease.

When she meets the enigmatic Christopher Dunn as strange relationship blossoms. He's a contrarian to the typical Yale student - awkward yet cocky. Through a series of meetings, a bond grows and what we think may become a May-December romance is not quite realized. These are two people probably incapable of intimacy.

There's plenty of literary allusions inserted in Rapp's lyrical dialogue, specifically an obsession with Dostoevsky's Crime and Punishment upon which a major plot element is mirrored. She's a published author, he's a wanna-be novelist. The story revolves around the needs of these two loners - she needs his help for her planned assisted suicide, and he presents her with his first novella to review.

She loves his story, shockingly similar to the aforementioned plot of C&P and he backs out of his obligation to assist Bella. She does have chemo and goes into remission, a rebirth of sorts, while Christopher meets a shocking end. It's all very strange, with the lines between reality and fantasy among their stories is blurred and wonderfully imagined.

Ibrahim and Miclean do some powerful work here and Minadakis provides them an intimate space to work aided by the thoughtful lighting of Mike Post and subtle score by Chris Houston. The sadness and emptiness of these characters brings them together and eventually separates them as well.

The Sound Inside runs through June 19th, 2022. Single tickets ($25-$60) can be purchased online at marintheatre.org or by calling 415-388-5208.