★★★★☆
Jazz drummer and composer Antonio Sánchez first met the lauded film director Alejandro González Iñárritu at an afterparty following a marathon concert event. Sánchez didn’t know it at the time, but that meeting was a fortuitous foundation for his Sydney Festival performance tonight: a two-hour tour de force of improvised drumming, played in conjunction with a screening of Iñárritu’s 2014 Oscar-winning film, Birdman.
Before the film begins, Sánchez welcomes the State Theatre audience with the story behind his involvement with Birdman. After Iñárritu commissioned him to compose a soundtrack, he had attempted to write rhythmic motifs for each of the film’s characters, from Michael Keaton’s washed-up former Hollywood star, Riggan Thomson, to his daughter Sam (an outstanding Emma Stone) and the volatile theatre actor Mike Shiner (Edward Norton). However, the director wanted an improvised score, so Sánchez recorded it within two-and-a-half days across two sessions. (An interesting point of trivia: the actors even rehearsed the script with Sánchez’s demos playing in the background.)
And so we arrive a couple of years later, with Sánchez sitting behind his drum kit at stage left, playing along live as the movie lights up the screen. It’s a well rehearsed performance, of course, but Sánchez promises his interpretation tonight (and every other time he hosts a show of this nature) will be unique. He’s a virtuosic drummer – his CV includes recordings with Pat Metheny and Chick Corea – but reacting in the moment to an award-winning film takes superhuman skill. For the audience, it’s breathtaking.
Sánchez demonstrates an incredible dynamic range and a glorious tone; from rim shots to splashes and drum rolls, he punctuates Emmanuel Lubezki’s cinematography with equal parts power and grace. The ‘live show’ aspect of the evening seems to encourage more enthusiastic reactions from those in attendance, as they laugh and applaud at moments in the film that might otherwise turn a cinema quiet. It’s an exchange of generosity from Sánchez to his audience and back again.
Sánchez captures everything from Riggan’s rage to the long build-ups of suspense, his hi-hats and tom-toms acting as a dialogue of their own. For a film exposing – in its darkly comic way – the artifice behind celebrity and theatre, a glimpse into the very creation of its soundtrack is a special experience: all but unbeatable.
Photo: Jamie Williams
Birdmanwas reviewed at the State Theatre on Saturday January 16 as part of Sydney Festival 2016.
