Thom Yorke on Broadway? It sounds like an anachronism, as to me, Broadway is attached to the past while the Radiohead frontman is turned toward the future? But I shouldn’t be so judgmental because it is a done deal, Thom York has composed an original score for a revival of Harold Pinter’s play ‘Old Times’, which will open in October at New York’s American Airlines Theater.
Yorke composed the score during 6 months of e-mail correspondence with director Douglas Hodge, and since the play was written in 1971, he worked with 1970s synthesizers.
‘It’s been a pleasure working with Doug on my first stage production. I’ve enjoyed exploring through music the script’s themes of love and memory as well as Pinter’s rhythms, twists and turns,’ explained Thom Yorke. ‘I’d say something like, ‘It describes a ribbon of light on the horizon. Can you do that?’ He’d say, ‘Got it’. He’d send me an e-mail of some music he’d written, and it would be some primeval, unusual thing. The sort of neurosis within his music certainly has elucidated elements of the compulsive repetition of the play,’ said Hodge to The New York Times.
Nevertheless, Radiohead fans should calm down because there will be no chance to catch Yorke performing this score during the play representation, ‘The last thing he’d want is that it becomes a Thom Yorke show,’ added Hodge. ‘The music Thom has written for Old Times gives an immediacy and a ‘now-ness’ to the show,’ said Hodge in a statement. ‘The play itself is about memory and love – Thom’s music works backwards and forwards and plays with time and repetition in the same way Pinter does. In true Thom Yorke style, the music is epic, heartbreaking, irresistible and complex. I’m hopeful this collaboration will result in a new kind of theatergoer coming to our show.’
Pinter’s play is about a married a couple being visited by an old friend of the wife, and the visit turns into a ‘love triangle thing full of menacing drama’… The play has many levels of interpretations, Pinter is weird so I guess Yorke’s music will fit perfectly. After all Jonny Greenwood has already scored movies ao why not a play for Yorke?
According to Rolling Stone, ‘Old Times’ will begin previews on September 17th, premiere October 6th and run until November 29th.