Speaking in Tongues

Speaking in Tongues
By Andrew Bovell. State Theatre Company (SA). Dunstan Playhouse. Director: Geordie Brookman. Designer: Victoria Lamb. 2 July - 24 July, 2011

Speaking in Tongues is emotional complexity piled on many-faceted soul-baring. It’s a mystery that is as much emotional as it is rational.

In the opening scene, the four characters of the first act navigate their way through working out if they have the gumption to commit adultery.

This shared moral lapse provides writer Andrew Bovell the chance to have the spouses confront each other, followed by a series of serendipitous meetings that you expect will end in blows, but he’s too crafty for such predictability.

The second act features new characters, bar one, and revolves around the mystery that was incidental in the first half.

A combination of elements come together to deliver an experience that is at first mesmerizing and then haunting.

Designer Victoria Lamb’s over-sized knotted driftwood floor connects the story to the main mystery, but also could be given any number of metaphorical interpretations.

Each of the four cast members deliver praiseworthy-and-beyond performances. The result is that even with this “quietly innovative piece of playwriting” the actors bring a realism to the characters: they’re your neighbours, the people you walk past in the street, the ones you queue behind at the supermarket.

The success of this production is that it forces you to consider the consequences that come that have sprung from your own everyday moral lapses.

Daniel G Taylor

PREVIEW AND BUY SCRIPT HERE.

Images: Chris Pitman and Leeanna Walsman; Terence Crawford and Leeanna Walsman; Chris Pitman and Lizzy Falkland.

Written by Andrew Bovell this is the play on which the film Lantana was based. Setting the production in the Dunstan Playhouse was a brave move - the text feels much more suited to an intimate venue such as the Space, but the production team has effectively overcome the difficulties of opening up intimately spoken dialogue with gentle and subtle amplification.

Bovell quickly sets up context, simultaneously introducing us to two married couples, Leon and Sonja, Peter and Jane, on a night when they have all decided to take a foray into the world of the unfaithful. In a clever use of dialogue, Bovell writes the characters lines in an overlapping manner, occasionally linking the words of two or more characters whilst taking the conversations of each couple in differing directions. This technique highlights the common insecurities, fears and desires all couples experience. Sonja and Peter decide not to cheat, and rather return to their partners – unfortunately Leon and Jane see their betrayal through, which starts a chain of events that impacts on all of the characters in the rest of the three part play.

Bovell claims that ”Speaking in Tongues is about the right and the wrong of emotional conduct. It is a story about contracts being broken between intimates while deep bonds are forged between strangers.” Director Geordie Brookman and the cast of four successfully draw out the innate complexities in relationships, and demonstrate that a person’s motivations are not always clear. They highlight that humanity is universally capable of failing, and then justifying it to ourselves – to the extent of judging others for actions we too are culpable of.

Terence Crawford plays Peter with a nervous edge, but mans-up later in the role of John. Lizzy Falkland as Sonja is delightfully complex, and as Valerie gives a chilling performance which puts you right on that dark back road. Chris Pitman was engaging as Leon and suitably suspect in his portrayal of Nick and Leeanna Walsman played a very naïve Jane, and crafty Sarah.

Dj Trip creates a suitably uneasy and edgy soundscape which charges the action nicely. Only occasionally is the music a little too much, becoming overtly self-aware where it should have been complimentary. Speaking in Tongues is a wonderful production of an excellent piece of theatrical writing. Check it out.

Paul Rodda

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