Speaking In Tongues

It’s knowing that you’re not supposed to sleep with that woman, but you sleep with her anyway, that is one of the riddles of classic drama. And what forces the revelation, but that serendipitous occasion, the so-called coincidence in which we step beyond society’s boundaries.

Andrew Bovell’s SPEAKING IN TONGUES, is just that, a series of coincidences through which we observe the mid-life ennui of two married couples, who at the play’s onset have never met each other. Yet we see them simultaneously acting out their infidelities in separate motel rooms with each of the four characters speaking more or less in unison.

The narrative itself is the play’s central contrivance, a ritual performed around the issues of contemporary domesticity. After the initial scene, the two wives meet, the two husbands meet, and by Act II the actors have taken on a duality of roles which further reveal their original relationships. The outcome is an intellectually provocative satire on marriage and an eerie who done it that involves one wife’s disappearance.

Seamlessly executed, the production, directed by Mark Clements is so smooth it takes off with split second timing. And the reflective mirrors with their 3-dimensional hologram effects spell psychological mystery.

The acting is equally smooth and tricky, especially Kevin Anderson. And Michael Gill’s ineffectual husbands become increasingly more believable while Karen Allen as his wife, stranded on a dark road emerges as a sensitive, articulate victim.

Clever is the sustaining quality of this production at the Roundabout Theatre which may not have the greatest substance, but it will cause you to leave the theatre begging to know more.

That’s This Week Off Broadway. I’m Isa Goldberg.