“Stereophonic” and “Cabaret” Turn Up the Volume on Broadway

The biographical details, though, are Adjmi’s to do with as he pleases, and he focusses on the extraordinary intensity engendered by creative collaboration, desire, and tons of cocaine. He shows us Reg and Holly serially breaking up, as well as Peter and Diana’s toxic codependence. The term “stereophonic” refers to blending multiple transmission channels, which the play literally does: as Grover adjusts the faders on the console, we sometimes eavesdrop on private conversations in the booth. We hear murmurs, tape reels clicking, room tone, and then, BOOM BOOM BOOM, the bass drum pounding away behind our ribs. Relationship catastrophes strike and recede, but the recording goes on. (Time may heal all wounds, but music preserves them.) Above all, the quintet appears to be, ruinously, in love with itself; even Grover almost falls into the band’s erotic, generative turbulence. Only his assistant Charlie (Andrew R. Butler, who looks like a weed-dealing St. Jerome) maintains his distance, mostly because no one remembers his name. The audience should listen to him, though. “The room has a really nice decay,” Charlie says at one point, hearing some subtle, perhaps metaphorical, undertones we can’t catch.