Reviews from the National and International Press
photo © Frantic Assembly
Stockholm
Drum Plymouth & Touring
"This latest show from Frantic Assembly comes together like a perfectly designed piece of flat-packed furniture and is a sinister joy. It is deeper, edgier, more emotionally dangerous than this groundbreaking company's earlier work: script, design and lighting, soundtrack and choreography conjoin in one lethal embrace"
Lyn Gardner, Sep 26, 2007.
Jarman Garden
Riverside Studios, London“Adrienne Quartly’s eclectic sound design emphasises Jarman’s Englishness, from a brass band playing An English Country Garden to a high-energy disco version of Jerusalem to the ecstatically soaring strings of Vaughan Williams. It’s a sublime interdisciplinary sensual assault”
Sam Marlowe, The Times 24th Feb 2004
Playing For Time
Salisbury Playhouse, Wiltshire, UK
“Paul Anderson’s lighting is stark and uncompromising, and the jangling fusion of music and concentration camp horror produced by Adrienne Quartly’s soundscape leaves no doubt of the hell outside the small place of tenuous privilege inhabited by Auschwitz’s women’s orchestra”. Lesley Bates, The stage online, Friday 2nd December 2005
Woyzeck
St. Ann’s Warehouse, Brooklyn, New York
“Working in perfect sync with his designers and cast, Kramer creates his freak show from gestures that thwart logic but make visceral sense…Take Woyzeck's peas… Every time he chews, the noise is magnified into a loud echo, like he's crunching in an empty cave. With a single sound cue, the natural act of eating becomes lonely and strange”
Mark Blankenship, Variety Online, New York, November 16th 2006
“The production's visual beauty was juxtaposed with a soundtrack made up mostly of Elvis, Dolly Parton, and Beethoven as well as occasional sound effects that rendered individual moments alternately cartoonish and haunting”.
Frank Episale, Offoffonline.com
Adrienne Quartly's soundscape, which uses both classical music and country-western songs, powerfully and comically enhances Kramer's work. For instance, while the song "Nine to Five" plays, Kramer contrasts the grinding routine of the underclass with the opulence of the elite. It's a moment that's tough to forget.
Andy Propst, Backstage.com nov 2006
Hysteria
Aurora Nova, Edinburgh Fringe Festival 2006
“Dramaturg Jonathan Young and his team – lighting designer Katharine Williams, set designer Yukiki Tsukamoto, and sound collaborators Carolyn Downing and Adrienne Quartly – have created a funny, innovative and at times disturbing exploration of how humans hang on to their sanity."
Naomi Mapstone Financial Times
National Alien Office (Stanislas Cotton)
Riverside Studios, London
“..But though it is a monologue, he is not alone on stage. He is accompanied by a cellist, Adrienne Quartly and accordionist, Karine Chevalier. The music has the effect of being another character. In the absence of an actor, it answers the intrusive questions of the immigration officer with discordant sounds. In the quieter, more reflective moments, it feels like a film noir soundtrack - accompanying a man who is isolated grappling with his demons”.
Bronagh Taggart, British theatre guide 2005
The Great Highway
Gate Theatre, London
“Jon Bausor’s cracked highway set has the audience sitting around the rubble of the road along which our main protagonist travels. Dotted within this, Adrienne Quartly has placed speakers that emit an almost polyphonic sound that wraps itself around the audience, drawing them in”.
Jeremy Austin, Feb 2006 Stage online
Nostalgia
Drum Plymouth
"The sound design, too, is superb and atmospheric. Birds sing as if in warning; icebergs crack and break....... Simon Stokes's canny production keeps things bubbling nicely in a drama whose rural otherworldliness ensures that this is a play less ordinary."
Lyn Gardner, The Guardian,
Thursday March 6, 2008
Greg Hicks, An Enemy of the People
An Enemy of the people
Arcola Theatre, London
"Fierce and formidable, all guns blazing, Mehmet Ergen's production lights up the Arcola... Adrienne Quartly has provided some nifty sounds, such as the newspaper office typewriters that turn into a swarm of avenging bees."
Rhoda Koenig, The Independent, Tuesday, 8 April 2008
The Container: Photograph © Alistair Muir.
The Container
Young Vic, London SE1.
“the sound is convincingly created by Adrienne Quartly”
Sarah Hemming, The FT, July 19 2009
"..The door is slammed shut and a lorry’s engine roars into life. The container remains motionless, but as Adrienne Quartly’s masterly sound design merges with the Waterloo street noise outside it’s easy to believe that you and the rest of the illegal human cargo are careering blindly through unknown cities"
Sam Marlowe, The Times, July 21st 2009
"The sound design by Adrienne Quartly contributes to the effect, channelling sound with heavy bass through the floor, and the decision to place the actual container in The Cut…proves a good one – the cars rumbling by make it all the more real"
Tom Atkins, Whatsonstage.com 17th July 2009
"The whole space rumbles and vibrates to create a convincing illusion of movement, the result of designer Naomi Dawson and sound designer Adrienne Quartly's combined technical efforts. That vibration creeps into your body, through the floor and the uncomfortable wooden crates that serve as seats, and sets your guts squirming"
Matt Boothman, British Theatre Guide 2009
To watch a trailer of the Container or purchase it online, please click here
A Christmas Carol (Adapted by Gary Owen)
Sherman Cymru
"The pace is admirable, the spectres projected with imagination, the songs by Adrienne Quartly seamlessly introduced"
Jon Holliday, The Stage 14 December 2009
The Painter
New Arcola"Adrienne Quartly's soundscape sends husky notes from a bass clarinet curling between episodes"
Susannah Clapp, The Observer, Sun 23 Jan 2011
Dream Story
Gate Theatre"Helen Goddard's claustrophobic set and Adrienne Quartly's disorientating soundscape heighten the sickliness as Fridolin's fears and desires swarm into life"
Brian Logan, The Guardian 22nd June 2011
"Her production is compelling - beautifully lit by Matt Haskins, brilliantly designed by Helen Goddard and with a subtle, insinuating sound design by Adrienne Quartly"
Whatsonstage.com 16th June 2011