The sound of working 9-to-5

Young Chang

The air conditioner blasts strong inside South Coast Repertory’s

Second Stage theater, but the chill that pervades has nothing to do with

climate.

Aram Arslanian’s music has jump-started the world premiere of Annie

Weisman’s “Hold Please.” It’s a rhythmic, techno mix of telephone beeps,

fax rings, computer whirls, typewriter clicks -- office sounds that are

the backdrop of most of our lives. The audible chaos of modernity and

technology is clearly the culprit of this undeniable chill.

But colder even still in this hilarious production about four female

employees in a high rise building is the contrast of their emotions with

their regimented lives. The commissioned SCR production opened Friday and

will run through Oct. 21.

In “Hold Please,” Erika and Jessica are the two young assistants who

split shifts answering phones. Grace and Agatha are older, less

techno-savvy and less tolerant of being sexually harassed by the male

boss, whom Erika secretly doesn’t seem to mind.

The four ladies have mastered the multi-tasking art of chatting --

subjects range from men to lip gloss and how glossy is not always good --

while answering calls in their high-pitched voices and scripted, “No he’s

not, but I can take a message!” attitudes.

Woven into their phone-taking, typing and message recording are deeply

human moments of personal struggles and demons.

Arslanian, the show’s sound designer, musicalizes all that is felt.

“I wanted to keep the atmosphere of a high-rise office building,” the

38-year-old said. “Beyond what was happening emotionally with the

characters, I wanted to keep a sense of where they were. For a lot of

people that work in these cubicles, there’s not much atmosphere.”

Arslanian roamed no further than his own Los Angeles house to compile

his electronic pattern. With a hard-disk recording system and a 50-foot

microphone cable, he created music with five different telephone rings,

the clicks and buzz of a fax machine transmitting, the beeps and dialing

of a computer connecting to the Internet, the audible storm of a monitor

booting, the nerve-racking pace of a typewriter being pounded and

synthesizer effects that tied it all together.

A centerpiece of the show includes composer Leroy Anderson’s “The

Typewriter,” an old Boston Pops classic that Arslanian techno-fied.

“In doing that, I wanted to avoid any kind of melodic structure in the

music,” he said. “I wanted to sound very not human, cold. It’s catchy

though.”

The cast even danced to his tunes between rehearsals, which was funny

to watch, Arslanian laughed.

Linda Gehringer, who plays Grace, says four women, a hilarious script

and equally comedic music are ingredients for fun rehearsals.

“It can give you, as an actor, so much energy,” Gehringer said of

music. “Music and sound can tell you so much that you could spend pages

of words trying to explain. A piece of music can open emotions and make

you laugh.”

Which is what you’ll be doing, despite how dark Weisman lets herself

get in some of the honest issues she explores. Though hilarious and sharp

and playful in her musical use of dialogue, Weisman’s piece is more than

just a night of laughs.

“She gets to the core of real unique problems in a very unique way,”

Gehringer said.

FYI

WHAT: “Hold Please”

WHEN: Through Oct. 21. 7:45 p.m. Tuesday through Sunday, 2 p.m.

matinees on Saturday and Sunday.

WHERE: South Coast Repertory’s Second Stage, 655 Town Center Drive,

Costa Mesa

COST: $19-$51

CALL: (714) 708-5555