Displaying items by tag: The Hum

THE LISTENERS has undergone several incarnations since the 2021 novel by Jordan Tannahill. It’s been a full-length movie, a TV series’, and now an opera, premiering in New York and now brought to Chicago by the renowned composer/librettist team Missy Mazzoli and Royce Vavrek. This opera, at Civic Opera House, was in all aspects a spectacle.

The first spectacle for me was the videography, designed by Chris Maravich and Sarah Riffle. It not only enhanced the show but actually made it possible for patrons sitting farther back than the Dress Circle to actually see the performers. Solos were performed from a nondescript podium while a huge video showed the artist in closeup. The result was both wonderful and very effective.

[NOTE: This production features an enormous cast and crew; I simply couldn’t wedge them all into my review. The result includes those artists whose work moved me speak – my opinions, which in no way reflect the superb work of artists I neglected to name.]

Throughout the opera I was fascinated by Adam Rigg’s brilliant set. A few scenes – those involving the full company – used the entire stage, but most sets were formed on a revolving stage comprised of two or three separate sets. The huge apparatus could be drawn onto the stage by 2-3 people, and turned to display each new set as easily, while one set faced the rear and was not visible to the audience, allowing Rigg’s team to prepare it for future scenes.

I was entranced by the dancers Rachel Harris and Morgan Reed McDaniel, particularly in their role as Coyote, an apparition that offers solace to the primary Listener, Claire [NOTE:  the critter is called Coyote but, without wanting to be difficult, I maintain that I know a bloody CAT when I see one! slinking about between peoples’ legs and swishing her long tail. But that’s neither here nor there so far as this review.]

Let me give you the bare bones of the story (no spoilers, I promise). The Hum is a phenomenon seen in the UK and the US, particularly in Southwestern desert areas. It’s described variously by individual sufferers, but all agree on the appellation The Hum, a noise, neither loud nor unpleasant but directionless, untraceable, and, worst of all, constant. Claire, an unexceptional American housewife and schoolteacher, is subjected to The Hum and is unable to explain her world of hallucinatory oddness. Her husband Paul (Zachary Nelson) and daughter Ashley (Jasmine Habersham) behave just as you’d expect–initially they treat Claire sympathetically and then, as The Hum and Claire’s anguish persist, they can’t help thinking she’s simply gone nuts.

And indeed, Claire herself feels crazy. Is it all in her imagination?  Could The Hum be a murmur of dissatisfaction with her ordinary life? It’s impossible to explain. She believes herself alone, the only person that hears it … until she consults her high-school students. Here she strikes gold: one student hears it too! This naturally creates a bond between Claire and Kyle (Jonas Hacker), and she is receptive when Kyle discovers a group, THE LISTENERS, whose mission is to understand and eliminate The Hum.

Led by the charismatic Howard (Kyle Ketelsen) and his second-in-command Angela (Daniela Mack), THE LISTENERS offers a compassionate environment for Claire and Kyle, a group where strangers pour out their most intimate secrets to each other within about five minutes of meeting (as you do). 

Drawn into this group - are they a cult? What does that even mean? - Claire finds succor after the breakdown of her own family life. Still, questions of power, mental health and explanations for The Hum are raised but never resolved.

Act the Second focuses on the group, THE LISTENERS, As the group grows larger and becomes more ritualistic, the members – who are, after all, basically just folks – begin to assume the conflicts common to large groups:  dissonance between members; jealousy for higher position (e.g. supplanting second-in-command Angela); partisan factions arguing polemics. These squabbles are heightened as members begin to denounce Howard, whose response to the mutineers escalates from disregard to outright hostility. Ultimately Howard appoints himself Lord High Executioner and banishes the dissenters from THE LISTENERS.

The ending is no small thunderbolt, and I’ll not risk spoilers! However, in the year 2025 I’d be remiss not to use this opportunity to explore the phenomenon of CULTS.

‘CULT’ vs  ‘SECT’

Sects are products of internal schism and maintain continuity with traditional beliefs and practices, whereas cults arise spontaneously around novel beliefs and practices.

Wikipedia defines a cult as a social group with socially deviant or novel beliefs and practices. However, the term has dehumanizing associations and by the end of the 1970s the term ‘cult’ was largely replaced in academia with " new religious movement”.

Sects are smaller parts of larger groups and are not necessarily religious. The field of Economics, for example, can be divided into the sect’s ‘capitalist’ and ‘communist’; Psychiatry includes the sects “Freudian’ and ‘Jungian’.     A number of devices are used to define and recognize cults, and to differentiate cults from sects.

Dr. Steven Hassan’s BITE model includes clues for recognizing cults

B for Behavior Control: Promote dependence and obedience in all aspects of life

• Where & with whom you live; appearance
• Regulate eating, drinking, and sleeping
• Exploitation – sexually, financially

I  for Information Control: Deliberately withhold & distort information

• Divide information into Insider vs Outsider
• Demand confession sessions then use that information against you
• Encourage spying on your peers & reporting ‘misconduct’

T   for Thought Control:  Instill Black vs White/  Us vs Them  /  Good vs Evil  thinking

• Only +ve thoughts allowed
• Singing, prayer, chanting to block thought

E  for Emotional Control:  Instill irrational fears – happiness is found only in the group

• Label certain emotions as wrong, evil, sinful
• Promote shame, guilt, unworthiness; threaten family & friends
• Love bombing until you disobey; then shunning

Some scholars have theorized that religiosity and cultic affiliation tend to rise in proportion to perceived uncertainty: the less control we have over our circumstances, the more likely we are to entrust our fates to a higher power. 

This propensity could speak to why cults proliferated during the social and political tumult of the 1960’s, and why levels of religiosity have remained wider spread in America than in other industrialized countries. Americans, it is argued, experience significantly more economic precarity than people in nations with stronger social safety nets. Thus, they’re more inclined to seek comfort and security elsewhere.

This final bit is not necessarily related to my review of THE LISTENERS, but I found it to be an interesting and possibly important thought. Personally, I find the idea uniquely disquieting in April 2025.

The opera THE LISTENERS is also significantly disquieting. I like – in fact I prefer these more sombre and troubled performances, especially as THE LISTENERS features a musically and dramatically brilliant cast and crew. But if you simply want to be entertained by the mellifluent tones of Lyric’s superlative performers, you may prefer another of the masterworks in Lyric Opera’s season

RECOMMENDED

THE LISTENERS plays at Lyric Opera of Chicago through April 11  

*This review is also featured on https://www.theatreinchicago.com/!