Review: “Subway Plays. The International Local: 7”

A sight-specific audio play in New York City subway.  

Normally I take the subway to the theater and then turn off my cell phone before the show. Attending Subway Plays this morning is completely different. My Metro Card serves as a “ticket” and cell phone basically provides the experience. The new creation by Erin B. Mee of This is Not a Theatre Company, is a “podplay” which you listen to on the subway via the Subway Plays app ($2.99 for both Apple and Android). Three plays, in fact, each is meant for a particular line, The International Local: 7 (by Jenny Lyn Bader), Damper Felts: N (by Jessie Bear) and Spare Some Change: L (by Colin Waitt).

To avoid the rush hour I take a Queens-bound 7 local train at 10 am from Times Square. The beauty of Subway Plays is that you can “attend” at any time, night or day. You can also start at 74^th Street-Broadway/Roosevelt Avenue in Queens and go to Manhattan and back. Just make sure to take a local train, not express and listen to one of two tracks (“To Queens” and “To Manhattan”) corresponding to your destination. Each act is under 25 minutes; the entire play should take you about an hour if no delays are on the line.

As the doors close, I take a seat, put the headphones on and hit play. On my way to Queens and back to Manhattan I listen to the bits and pieces of several dialogues. Some of these people travel together and discover something in each other along the way. Some of them are brought together by the commute and suddenly find a genuine human connection. Immigrants, travelers, lovers, local historians, artists might sit and stand right next to you and you won’t even know this. You phone, however, gives you a super power to “overhear” the conversations in the car and to follow the lives of everyday people, at least for the duration of your ride.

I am in love with the concept but not so much the execution. As soon as I start the track, I immediately hear the rattle of the train wheels on the recording, competing with the sounds that the actual subway car makes. To my disappointment, the sound effect never goes away, only fading when the dialogue is heard. I wonder why the sound designer, Natalie Johnsonius Neubert, did that if the play was intended to be sight specific? It is especially disorienting when the car stops, but the sound of it running continues.

The recording is binaural, meaning that sometimes you hear people talking in your right ear, sometimes in your left ear, for a closer resemblance to real life. A couple of times, as the characters discuss other passengers on the train you can’t help but look around and try to assign those characteristics to people who ride with you, including the passers by in the fabric of the narration. These moments, where the play reaches out to the reality are probably the most powerful.

The conversations of the “passengers” are endearing at times, like the one between a Chinese grandmother and her grandson during which she discovers video games for herself. At times the dialogues are informative and reference objects on route like stained glass windows on 40^th street station. But with those the timing is always a little off which is not surprising, it is difficult to time the subway train. There is a couple role-playing “strangers on the train”, a Spanish-speaking woman who tries not to fall asleep, a sketch artist and many more. A tapestry of languages is heard throughout, embodying the concept of New York as an international city.

The dialogues don’t stop and, sometimes, even overlap. I find the density of them a little too thick and the content often pointless. I was sold on the synopsis and really wanted to like Subway Plays. But in reality, The International Local: 7 that I attended is rather disappointing. It tackles some problematic topics, like the perception of immigrants or breast-feeding in public places, but doesn’t provide any insightful observations. Nor does it draw three-dimensional characters. It mostly resembled an exercise in comprehensive listening.
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The International Local: 7, is an audio play by Jenny Lyn Bader. It is conceived by Erin B. Mee and produced by This is Not a Theatre Company. Subway Plays App is available for $2.99. More information at thisisnotatheatrecompany.com