The Robots in ‘Frequency Hopping’ Steal the Show

Movie stars, spies, secret weapons and science do exist together outside of a Hollywood blockbuster. The tale of film icon Hedy Lamarr and composer George Antheil’s invention of an anti-jamming device used to control torpedoes proved as true as it did strange. The oddity of the story is brought out even more in the play Frequency Hopping, produced by the [Hourglass Group] and showing at [3LD Art & Technology Center].

Written and directed by Elyse Singer, Frequency Hopping chronicles how Antheil (Joseph Urla) and Lamarr (Erica Newhouse) thought up the logistics of one of Lamarr’s inventions and the strange sort of relationship they had together. They kiss once in the play but it never becomes clear if Antheil, who was married, and Lamarr, divorced twice, did more then that.

Lamarr invites Antheil over to “check out her glands,” which in turn leads to a deep discussion of breasts—namely Lamarr’s small ones. Turns out she didn’t really ask Antheil to her home to get his opinion of her mammaries but instead reveals to him her ideas on how to stop the Germans from thwarting American torpedoes. After nights of drunken (and assumed sober) planning, the pair developed a way for radio waves to sporadically compose by moving around frequencies and sending false signals to enemy controllers. They applied for a patent and, wanting to serve the country, they gave it to the army. Their device, which we now know as the “frequency-hopping spread spectrum” and is one of the keys in making our cell phones work, went widely ignored for years. After Antheil died, Lamarr finally got recognition for the project and received the 1997 Pioneer Award from the Electronic Frontier Foundation.

Video projections are essential parts of the production, creating different rooms, times, places and ghostly memory visualizations for the sparse stage. Beside a typical couch, armchair and table, the stage props include toy planes, a rubber duck and bottles of wine. A pair of Yamaha pianos are located on each side of the stage, plus a xylophone and two large drums hanging from the ceiling. Then there’s the gong and other various sound-making devices. Only two of the pianos were touched by human hands, the rest of the time Joshua Fried’s original score was played by a robotic orchestra created by LEMUR: League of Electronic Musical Urban Robots. Watching the keys of the piano move without a person gave the production a phantom-like feel as if Antheil’s spirit was adding its two cents.

Good thing the stage, story and robots were so captivating, since the acting didn’t always live up to the standards of such an original production. Newhouse has the height and stature of Lamarr, but lacked the grace—especially when she danced. Plus, the lighting and makeup made Newhouse appear 35 rather than the age of her 26-year-old character. On a different note, Joseph Urla, who resembles an older John Cusack, fitted the part well, mainly due to his build and Jersey accent. Their solo scenes are fantastic, but they seem quite awkward on stage together. The production’s most distinctive element is the orchestra and is worth seeing for that alone. A couple of weeks ago, LEMUR’s robots played the 1924 composition, Ballet Mecanique, in its entirety after the play. They perform it again on June 22—and that shouldn’t be missed.

[ Through June 29. 3LD Art & Technology Center, 80 Greenwich St. (at Rector St.), 212-352-3101; Wed.-Sat. 8; Sun. 3, $20.]

Photo by Dixie Sheridan