David Adjmi’s Stereophonic is the best new play I’ve seen in some time, a riveting account of the making of a hit record that is loosely based on the production of Fleetwood Mac’s Rumours.  Set entirely in the recording studio, it follows five musicians (Will Brill, Juliana Canfield, Tom Peckina, Sarah Pidgeon, and Chris Stack) and two sound engineers (Eli Gelb and Andrew R. Butler) through a monthslong marathon of round-the-clock sessions.  The music is both inspired and hindered by alcohol, cocaine, and romantic breakups.  The songs we watch them painstakingly record and rerecord and engineer (written by Will Butler of Arcade Fire) don’t even make the album.  They get scrapped for time.

Like Robert Altman, Adjmi has a promiscuous interest in his characters.  Cross talk is the norm, and no one is privileged over another.  Stereophonic is, to risk stating the obvious, stereophonic.  There’s a wonderful, early moment when Grover (Gelb) confesses to Charlie (Butler) that he lied about engineering The Eagles’ One of These Nights.  Charlie responds poorly and keeps repeating, “I don’t like liars.”  In a weaker play, this would come back around, perhaps at a climactic moment for Charlie.  Here, the thread is dropped, and the effect is to suggest a full, unexplored world beyond what we see onstage.  We are getting a private view into a few hours in the lives of these musicians, but that view is limited and excludes much of their lives.  The whole experience feels like privileged eavesdropping.

The eavesdropping lasts for a little over three hours.  I could have stayed for four.

Stereophonic runs through August 18th at the Golden Theatre.  252 W. 45th Street  New York, NY.  3 hours 5 minutes.  One intermission. Photograph by Julieta Cervantes.