Enda Walsh’s Arlington utilizes music as a major source of its storytelling. The dystopian love story is scored by the music of Teho Teardo, the show’s composer. The style of the original music is dissonant and stirring. Often with sweeping strings and solemn piano keys as the primary musical structures, the music remains tense throughout, maintaining a heightened sensory experience underscored for the entirety of the show. Arlington also features musical moments such as the Ramones’ rendition of “Baby I Love You” and “Demolition” by Los Saicos.These two musical moments provide a momentary break from Teardo’s steady instrumentation but maintain the fuzzy, distorted sound of the score. Walsh’s choice to center contemporary musical styles felt like an important stylistic text for this play, so we wanted to honor that by maintaining the more stripped-back style, reminiscent of Teardo’s score.
Because music would is such a vital aspect of the play’s structure and overall aesthetic, we decided that creating an original score would be the best option for this story. Actor and Director Alix Curnow reached out to New York city based Composer and bassist Sammy Sussman to create the original score for our production. Sussman is a peer of Alix’s, studying music composition at the University of Michigan’s School of Music, Theatre, and Dance, where he currently plans to graduate from in 2021. Besides being an incredibly accomplished composer and bass player, he is also an accomplished journalist whose works in such publications like The Michigan Daily a nd VAN Magazine have landed him in esteemed spaces like the Columbia Journalism Review and the Detroit Free Press.
Sussman’s previous compositions create the perfect ambience for a play like Arlington, so it’s only natural that his musical stylings would work well with our production. Curnow and Sussman actually collaborated on a previous 
project last year, an original piece from Curnow entitled juliet. In this piece, Sussman composed “Love Cue”, a song that perfectly evokes the eerily familiar kind of love present in Arlington. Though not a typical love story, Walsh’s text paints the picture of two people finding each other in the depths of their desperation. Playing with and responding to each other, the violins in “Love Cue” resemble two birds in a mid-flight throw of passion, and as they fall in and out of dissonance with the repetitively moving piano line, they clash against the normal expectations associated with love. At least, that’s one interpretation of Sussman’s beautiful composition. To experience his musical magic yourself, you can click the following link: https://soundcloud.com/sammy-sussman/love-cue-from-juliet
Sussman’s original works for Arlington maintain the moving sentiments of his previous works while introducing chaotic elements that highlight, and at some points augment, the chaotic and dismal world of the play. Working together with our choreographer Kenny Giles, Curnow will direct scene two of the script which follows one of the character’s final minutes of her life. For our production, the entire dance will be choreographed to Sussman’s original compositions which will provide for a very unique experience and an interpretation of Walsh’s work that is very personal and intimately curated. Team Arlington is excited for you to see the performance and witness the brilliant work of Sammy Sussman for yourself. If you feel the need for some Arlington-related music in advance, we encourage you to listen to the original soundtrack, Arlington: Music for Enda Walsh’s Play, which is available on all major streaming platforms.