In his career as Radiohead’s frontman, Thom Yorke has spent song after song documenting the alienation and loneliness bred by modern technology. You spend so much time soaking in bummer soup, it can be hard to really feel anything. So, what is it that makes Thom Yorke’s heart beat? That’s Broooooadwaaay, baby! Yorke has recently made his first foray into the theater, the only true artform left (I guess, sure, whatever), by composing music for a Broadway production of Harold Pinter’s 1971 drama Old Times.
When Thom Yorke writes music for a play, that play better be some sort of an unsettling drama concerning desire and blurred realities starring a big-name Hollywood actor. Well, as the press release states, Old Times is “an unsettling drama of desire and blurred realities” and it does happen to star big-name Hollywood actor Clive Owen, along with Eve Best and Kelly Reilly. That’s the kind of quality/theme Yorke comes to expect, and that is why he’s written music that the play’s director Douglas Hodge says “works backwards and forwards and plays with time and repetition in the same way Pinter does.” The director goes on to describe the music as “epic, heartbreaking, irresistible, and complex,” the same adjectives I would use to describe staring into this picture of Thom Yorke for hours on end.
Old Times premieres October 6 at Manhattan’s American Airlines Theatre, though previews begin September 17. The production is set to run through November 29, while the concepts of desire and blurred realities are set to last forever. Tickets are available now through Roundabout Theatre.
Meanwhile, Thom Yorke also debuted a new track at Latitude Festival. Check it out here:
• Thom Yorke: https://twitter.com/thomyorke
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