Two peculiar overachievers meet.  One is a precocious, well-read, well versed and outspoken college student and another a well versed, well-read and well-spoken middle-aged Yale professor.  It is a meeting of the minds as they surprisingly challenge each other when seemingly the only thing that challenges each of them comes in literary form.

Immediately engaging, shrewdly written, and oftentimes bleak, The Sound Inside is quite capable of rendering the audience speechless.  It is jarring, reflective, and moving and from what is learned about these characters, one cannot help but hope for the well being of these two lost souls.

Directed by Bryn Boice, SpeakEasy Stage Company opened their new season with Adam Rapp’s Tony-nominated play The Sound Inside continuing at the Calderwood Pavilion at the Boston Center for the Arts in Boston through Saturday, October 16.  Presented for the first time in Boston, The Sound Inside contains mature themes and some difficult topics.  It is 90 minutes without an intermission.  Click here for more information and for tickets.

Much of The Sound Inside is about hope.  It’s about looking for hope when the light is dim and the quest for finding hope is rarely a comfortable journey. 

Cristina Todesco’s minimal set does well creating depth and dimension, but does not take away from the primary focus of this character driven study.  Devorah Kengmana’s lighting lends to each character’s loneliness as shadows are created at pivotal moments.

Jennifer Rohn as prominent Yale professor Bella Baird unleashes a no holds barred look into her psyche.  She is an avid reader which seems to help her escape past trauma and the crisis she is currently facing.  Her keen intellect is immediately obvious and she is unfiltered, blatantly unfettered, and undeterred as she shares her life up to this point.  Rohn is as captivating a storyteller as she is in exhibiting Baird’s loneliness.

Set in the fall in New Haven, Connecticut, Baird has a surprising encounter with Christopher Dunn, portrayed with a mix of arrogance, intuitiveness, and inquisitiveness by Nathan Malin, and they share a distinct, intangible connection.  With similar dry senses of humor, a shared love of the written word, and a mutual social awkwardness, they understand and encourage each other to live life boldly. However, Rapp’s script is full of detours and twists that don’t always land perfectly, but lead to a tense and incalculable ending. Just when the show seems to tow the line, the tables turn.

SpeakEasy Stage Company presents The Sound Inside at the Calderwood Pavilion in Boston through Sunday, October 16.  Click here for more information and tickets.  Click here for upcoming events and more at the SpeakEasy Stage Company.