NEW YORK—Seamlessly combining the epic, intimate, and mundane, Elevator Repair Service continues their practice of bringing literary classics to life with the presentation of the first chapter of William Faulkner’s “The Sound and the Fury” now at the Public Theater.
The show program contains a quote from Shakespeare’s “Macbeth,” which reads in part, “It is a tale told by an idiot, full of sound and fury signifying nothing”—to which could be added “and everything” when applied to this production.
Spanning 1898 to 1928, the story focuses on the lives of the Compsons, a somewhat well-off Mississippi family, and the Gibsons, their African-American servants. In this chapter of the novel, everything that happens is seen through the eyes of the mentally challenged Benjy Compson (Susie Sokol, Aaron Landsman). Someone describes him as being 3 years old for 30 years.
