The most recent play in Black Swan’s 2025 program is turning 30 next year. Speaking in Tongues by Andrew Bovell first premiered in 1996 in Sydney and has since been adapted into a film: Lantana (2001).
The play is complex in form, starting with a scene full of simultaneous speaking between two interacting narratives occurring in the same space on the stage but in different places in the story. It must have been very complex for the actors and technical team to pull this off but the effect was astounding.
In Act One, Sonia and Pete have met in a bar and found themselves in a cheap motel. Meanwhile, their partners, Jane and Leon, have done the same. Their dialog intercepts each other, mirroring and contrasting the action between these two cheating couples. This draws interesting parallels between the characters and their situations as well as invites comparisons that are both sad and funny.
Speaking in Tongues by Andrew Bovell. Daniel J Grant Photography.
The comedic lines all landed perfectly. The jokes are not one liners or complicated stories but throw-away comments or a glance sideways. Or just the coincidence of these four people entangling their lives; not only sleeping with each other’s partners but also encountering each other and seeking advice from the person they feel most guilty about hurting.
Act Two departs from our two couples at first, giving characters who only appeared as a subject of a conversation in the first act the chance to tell their own story. A man who has spent his whole life searching for the the woman who left him; that woman; her therapist; the therapist’s husband and the man she got a lift from on the night she disappeared. They all get a chance to tell their story, sometimes overlapping with each other’s versions and revealing how little we know about someone else when hearing about them from others.
Matt Edgerton has more characters than anyone else, playing three contrasting and obscure people. The differences between his characters were so profound that I could easily have been convinced they were being played by different actors had it not been such a small cast. His pitiful insecurity as Pete came across so differently to the subdued anger of John, different again to the manic drunkenness of Nick.
Leon from the first act is the only character to return in the second – other than by reference – and Luke Hewitt plays this complex man. Leon treats people, including his wife, terribly, yet I cannot help liking him and wanting him to succeed. Hewitt’s facial expressions in particular are a subtle yet powerful source of comedy.
Catherine Moore also gave a stellar performance as two completely different characters, Jane and Valerie. Down to the bones these women are different with different motivations, manners, and traumas, yet both are likable and enigmatic with a hidden potential for cruelty.
Speaking in Tongues by Andrew Bovell. Daniel J Grant Photography.
I found Alexandra Steffensen’s characters Sonia and Sarah the most difficult to know. They both act immorally, as does everyone in the play, yet they are both the least apologetic of their actions, something unusual and unfortunately still jarring to see from a woman. From the salsa dance in the opening scene Sonia is the most determined and acts the most brazenly. The complexity of Steffensen’s performance demands a second, third and fourth consideration for both Sonia and Sarah as people who do not need or want to be liked.
Fiona Bruce’s set design makes the huge stage of the Heath Ledger Theater feel intimate yet minimalist with a single bed, sofa, or bar stools descending from the ceiling when needed. This exclusion of anything unnecessary focuses the attention on the characters and their relationships and reflects their own hyperfocus on the relationships that they are creating and destroying. The phone box, recreated in detail by the design team, places the play firmly in the nineties, almost viscerally. I heard one woman say she knew exactly what it would smell like from across the auditorium.
In this intimate space the lighting design by Mark Haslam works hard keep the simultaneous scenes separate and easily understandable. Harsh spotlights not only separate the scenes that are not occurring in the same place but also separate the characters from each other, emphasising their isolation and inability to communicate. Haslam’s subtle use of projection in the background adds an otherworldly atmosphere to Act Two, enhancing what is already a dreamlike environment without distracting from stories being told.
Speaking in Tongues by Andrew Bovell. Daniel J Grant Photography.
Also contributing to this dreamlike and ultimately creepy atmosphere is Ash Gibson Grieg’s sound design. In Director Humphrey Bower’s speech after the show, he revealed that the score and sound for the second act were entirely extrapolated from one song. The Latin-sounding song is repeated in recordings, in solo voice performance and in spooky humming from the characters. This phenomenal creative team came together to completely unsettle the audience. Black Swan’s production destabilises our foundational understanding of relationships and provokes us into considering how and how easily the story on stage could become our own. It makes the little grey cells churn.
To explain Speaking in Tongues is difficult because it defies genre. Sometimes romance, sometimes mystery, sometimes horror and sometimes thriller, the play breaks the boundaries of expectation and defies any comforting basis we have to steady ourselves. Much like the breaking up of a long-term relationship that upturns one’s entire life. If you love the technicalities and theories of theatre, you will quite likely love this show, and be swept along by the stories. If you don’t enjoy being provoked with humanity’s follies and deciphering a complicated web of relationships then it might not be for you. I was gripped for every second of the production and will be mulling over the story for a long time to come.
Speaking in Tongues is presented by Black Swan State Theatre Company and is on from Aug 23- Sep 14 at the Heath Ledger Theatre.