Paul Rome performs his radio show at The Bushwick Starr. — Photo by Paul Cox
Paul Rome is a name that just keeps coming up around Bushwick, and we’re always glad to hear it. He writes a mean story and puts on just as good of a show, and Thursday night at the Bushwick Starr was in no way an exception. On air for one night only was Rome’s new radio play, And once again…, a study of a jazz collector, his small town life, and a mythical record that shakes things up. Fortunately for the rest of the world, plans are also afoot for a studio recording which may see some actual airwaves (or at least the 21st century equivalent).
Radio theater is not exactly a living or breathing art form in this country, and while people do get the notion to put on a live recording now and then, it’s usually with the full trappings of prohibition-era-cocktail-drinking, fedora-wearing vintage fetishism. Rome instead chose to make his play current, but passed on the role of historical obsession to the jazz-loving narrator himself, keeping medium and content one step removed. In the space between stands the real world of small town Massachusetts, which the collector inhabits with mixed success.
Along with writing and showmanship, Paul Rome also excels at seeking out Bushwick’s best collaborators. Here his monologue as the collector was backed up by the voices of Pass Kontrol‘s Adam Brown, as well as Cherie Burnett and Chelsea Vigue as the women who refuse to be a part of his record-stacked existence. Rome also scored the show with a hand from Roarke Menzies.
The score did wonders for the emotional content of the performance, but revealed an interesting choice. While the plot revolved around an unknown 1945 recording of Charlie Parker and Dizzy Gillespie, on which can be heard the exact moment when Bird "gets it" and bebop is born, the score offered no hints of jazz. Ambient beats and muffled sound clips instead formed a stage for the language. Listening to Rome breathlessly describe the experience of listening to legendary recordings, with nothing but needle noise behind, showed a calculated restraint in playing hard-to-get with what a radio show can most easily share. It also made clear that the show wasn’t really about jazz, but something less audible.
Whether the audience members listen to WKCR’s Bird Flight every morning or, like every other character in the play, just couldn’t care less, the engrossing show reminded us of the power of sound performance to reveal much – even about other sounds and other performances.
