As promised, I did manage to get back to see Speaking in Tongues again... twice as it happens. I won some tickets, so took my sons, then went again with a friend.
Seeing plays more than once is always fascinating, watching the performances grow and develop, and how a different audience can change the whole evening. Then, of course, there is my own changing responses, finding that some things still work for me, whilst others lose their shine.
On the second viewing, the co-ordination of the actors had certainly developed much more, and the flow of the speech had reached that comfortable, lyrical stage so I had a great night again.
On the third night though, it was as if they had all gone off the boil a bit. John Simm had altered his playing of the role, as if he was putting less of himself into it, particularly in the second half... and I really missed the notebook that he battled to get out of his pocket on both previous occasions - this time he simply didn't bother. I have read since about Ian Hart's little grumbles about audiences and apparent temper tantrum and I wonder if some of that was contributing to the strange atmosphere?
The audience seemed to still be having a good time though, so maybe it was just me, and three viewings is one too many.
Showing posts with label speaking in tongues. Show all posts
Showing posts with label speaking in tongues. Show all posts
Friday, 4 December 2009
Thursday, 1 October 2009
Speaking my Language
All I knew about Speaking in Tongues when I booked our seats was that it had the amazing John Simm to complete a classy cast of Kerry Fox, Ian Hart and Lucy Cohu playing all nine characters.
A fascinating bit of writing, the play circles around the characters and events, playing with language and scenes and using simultaneous and overlapping speech to highlight links and gaps between people. It especially uses rhythm, with pauses and accents to an extent that this could almost have been performance poetry. Reviewers and the programme notes highlight the themes of trust and betrayal, but the main thing that struck me was the swirling circular nature of that rhythm, bringing us back round to the same scenes and words from a slightly different perspective.
The first half looks at two couples teetering on the edge of adultery, and then in the second half focuses on the events seen and mentioned earlier from the viewpoint of the other characters involved, resulting in a sort of complicated six degrees of separation thing, with the only repeated character being John Simm’s Leon. The plotting is so complex I was still sorting it out in my head on the way home, but despite that, there is no neat conclusion, which left a strangely unsettled feeling – something I love! Much better than an ending neatly tied up in a bow.
All of the actors managed their multiple roles very nicely. I saw Ian Hart just a few weeks ago in Three More Sleepless Nights at the Lyttleton; he was excellent in that as well, and this felt like a natural progression. Of course, John Simm is a huge draw and deservedly so. He had the two most diverse characters, and was just as mesmerising but different in both. Despite spending most of his career on screen, his stage energy is just amazing, doing that clever actorly thing of seeming to become the character, rather than ‘acting’.
Despite being a polished and gripping production and one of the most interesting plays I have seen this year, I think it still has scope for more, and I am keen to come back at the end to see how it has developed. I’ve already mentioned the importance of the rhythm and because of that, any tiny false steps and missed or delayed cues are glaringly obvious. I have a feeling that at the end of the run, the actors might have internalised the lines as if they are lyrics, so that they could speak along with it whilst cooking the tea and feeding the cat without missing a beat. If that happens, this will move up into another realm. And I really wouldn’t want to miss that.
A fascinating bit of writing, the play circles around the characters and events, playing with language and scenes and using simultaneous and overlapping speech to highlight links and gaps between people. It especially uses rhythm, with pauses and accents to an extent that this could almost have been performance poetry. Reviewers and the programme notes highlight the themes of trust and betrayal, but the main thing that struck me was the swirling circular nature of that rhythm, bringing us back round to the same scenes and words from a slightly different perspective.
The first half looks at two couples teetering on the edge of adultery, and then in the second half focuses on the events seen and mentioned earlier from the viewpoint of the other characters involved, resulting in a sort of complicated six degrees of separation thing, with the only repeated character being John Simm’s Leon. The plotting is so complex I was still sorting it out in my head on the way home, but despite that, there is no neat conclusion, which left a strangely unsettled feeling – something I love! Much better than an ending neatly tied up in a bow.
All of the actors managed their multiple roles very nicely. I saw Ian Hart just a few weeks ago in Three More Sleepless Nights at the Lyttleton; he was excellent in that as well, and this felt like a natural progression. Of course, John Simm is a huge draw and deservedly so. He had the two most diverse characters, and was just as mesmerising but different in both. Despite spending most of his career on screen, his stage energy is just amazing, doing that clever actorly thing of seeming to become the character, rather than ‘acting’.
Despite being a polished and gripping production and one of the most interesting plays I have seen this year, I think it still has scope for more, and I am keen to come back at the end to see how it has developed. I’ve already mentioned the importance of the rhythm and because of that, any tiny false steps and missed or delayed cues are glaringly obvious. I have a feeling that at the end of the run, the actors might have internalised the lines as if they are lyrics, so that they could speak along with it whilst cooking the tea and feeding the cat without missing a beat. If that happens, this will move up into another realm. And I really wouldn’t want to miss that.
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