Catherine Bennett resumes the weekly look at the performing arts world, with the sad end of Jerusalem, the luck of a cabbie, and French revolt. Do you hear the people sing?
Adam Alcock reviews Nigel Kennedy playing Vivaldi's Four Seasons and his own Four Elements at York Opera House.
Catherine Bennett highlights the trends in the performing arts world today.
Jonathan Cridford reviews 'Ghosts', one of the Freshers' plays for this year.
Speaking in Tongues follows a recent pattern of plays in the Drama Barn, tackling head-on the grimier realities and difficulties of marriage, but it does a better job than most, with more realistic characters and, for some at least, glimmers of hope and genuine affection showing through the bleakness of the tangled situations they fall into.
Tangled is most certainly the word for this play; Andrew Bovell’s script is an intricately constructed network of coincidences, connections and entwinements between characters, seemingly all used to reveal the similarities and differences between their personalities and outlooks on love, life and relationships. Without giving away the plot, the play provides glimpses into the dark moments and mistakes of several couples, all of them interconnected both narratively and thematically despite being strangers to one another. Scenes often occur concurrently as characters and events parallel one another and almost every minor detail and anecdote is a point of contact between characters that will be seen through different eyes in another story, another snapshot, later on.
The first act was tighter, more constrained - characters were quickly established, the narrative style confidently introduced, especially in the first scene where overlapping dialogue was used to great effect. It jumped between characters to form new combinations, new couples, almost imperceptibly, and all the while comparing and contrasting the mirrored speakers. Impressively, not one of the actors stumbled or broke the timing in the entire scene.
The characters in the second act evolved more gradually, teasingly, given time to stew and develop, which seems only fitting as even darker themes and events were investigated. It took longer than the first act to really bite, the connections between the characters revealed more slowly. The more relaxed focus compared to the first act meant Nick and Neil seemed somewhat superfluous and undeveloped compared to the other characters, but they were brought to life proficiently by Barn veterans Adam Massingberd-Mundy and Ryan Lane.
Director Catherine Bennett deserves recognition for her work, overseeing the aforementioned overlapping dialogue (which, sadly, only made brief reappearances), fluid, polished performances and several moments of perfectly synchronised blocking. The set was somewhat stark, and a single scene change in the second act broke immersion merely for the sake of another chair, but focus never left the characters and a variety of different locations were conveyed by the subtle lighting design of Phillip Mitchell, which managed to be memorable despite being entirely unobtrusive.
With a large cast comes a spectrum of performances, some underplayed and carefully restrained, others more exaggerated and intense. Lauren Oliver gave a brittle portrayal of Jane in Act One that was outstanding even within a talented and experienced cast. It must be said that at times, perhaps due to opening night nerves, some moments and actors came across as stagey or overly self-aware, though certainly not enough to mar a skilful adaptation of a challenging and innovative script.
Speaking in Tongues is an extremely clever play, spinning a web rather than a yarn, and well worth a look even if you’re weary of the multitude of ‘marriage and misery’ melodramas.
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