Chris Randle

The Human Voice is a contemporary adaptation of the 1928 stage play by Jean Cocteau, and "La Voix Humaine," the 1958 chamber opera by Francis Poulenc. In a radically new production The Human Voice presents a flip of gender, and a metaphor of global pandemic. Now in English, Isaiah Bell sings to his male lover, and into the abyss of COVID. In a Zoom call impaired by lag and freeze and dropped signals, technology is once again enemy to intimacy. The agony of failed love is heightened by the necessity of distance, by the anaesthetic of the machine.

The Human Voice is a contemporary adaptation of the 1928 stage play by Jean Cocteau, and "La Voix Humaine," the 1958 chamber opera by Francis Poulenc. In a radically new production The Human Voice presents a flip of gender, and a metaphor of global pandemic. Now in English, Isaiah Bell sings to his male lover, and into the abyss of COVID. In a Zoom call impaired by lag and freeze and dropped signals, technology is once again enemy to intimacy. The agony of failed love is heightened by the necessity of distance, by the anaesthetic of the machine.

12年前に幼い愛娘を亡くす悲劇に見舞われた人形師とその妻が暮らす館へ孤児院の６人の少女たちとシスターがやって来る。新生活に心躍らせる彼女たちだったが、何者かの気配を感じたり、無人の部屋でレコードが鳴り出したり、自然に開閉するドア、不気味な物音など家の中には不気味な雰囲気が漂っていた。怪現象に怯える脚の不自由なジャニスは、ある晩、鍵が掛かっているはずのドアが開いていることに気づき、中を覗くと、そこにいたのは人形＜アナベル＞だった。呪いの封印を解かれた＜アナベル＞は、逃げても、捨てても、執拗にジャニスを追い詰める。