Abroad

Speaking in Tongues

 (Duke of York's Theater, London; 659 seats; £48.50 $88 top)

By KAREN FRICKER

Lucy Cohu and Kerry Fox undertake multiple roles in the twisty thriller.

A Sweet Pea Prods. and Blue Horizon Prods. presentation of a play in two acts by Andrew Bovell. Directed by Toby Frow.
 
Leon, Nick - John Simm
John, Pete, Neil - Ian Hart
Sonja, Valerie  - Lucy Cohu
Jane, Sarah  - Kerry Fox
 

Andrew Bovell's 2000 play, "Speaking in Tongues," a hit in his native Australia and the source of the film "Lantana," feels adrift in this vaguely British-set, sparsely produced West End staging. Play is a complex narrative puzzle of trust and betrayal, in which characters' stories overlap and inform each other. But the combination of Toby Frow's stolid direction, the removal of the Australian setting, and some slippery accents lower audience engagement with Bovell's intriguing text.

The play's staging challenges begin with a tricky first scene simultaneously presenting two couples embarking on one-night stands, with overlapping, often simultaneous dialogue and action happening on two sides of the same hotel room. The plot thickens as we slowly realize the characters are two married couples unknowingly swapping partners -- or not:  Sonja (Lucy Cohu) eventually decides not to have sex with John (Ian Hart), even as John's wife, Jane (Kerry Fox), is bedding down with Sonja's husband, Leon (John Simm).

This improbable scenario is clearly not meant to be interpreted literally, but the poetically elusive world of coincidences and half-suggested, half-realized connections in Bovell's text are bogged down by heavy, ill-timed delivery of the lines and very literal blocking. Bovell's play overall suggests a claustrophobic, somewhat surreal world in which chance encounters presage or perhaps provoke life-changing events. But the production does not provide a strong enough sense of location or context to make it feel like there's much at stake in what is ostensibly a thriller format.

The characters' various accents suggest a U.K. setting, but Hart's John sometimes sounds American, and Fox's natural New Zealand inflections frequently slip through. This causes particular confusion given that actors are doubling in roles; trying to determine whether the characters remain consistent throughout act one (in fact, they do) distracts from action and theme. Ben Stones' basic setting of brick walls provides the flexibility for locations to move from homes to bars to offices, but adds to an overall sense of heaviness and flatness.

The second act jumps back chronologically to pursue a mystery suggested earlier by Jane's long monologue about seeing a neighbor throw a woman's shoe into a vacant lot. We follow the story of the disappearance of that woman, a therapist named Valerie (Cohu), and its implications for one of her patients (Fox), her husband (Hart) and neighbor Nick (Simm).

Star of the popular BBC series "Life on Mars," Simm cuts a credible enough figure as moody cop Leon but only really shines in his brief monologue as the bewildered, perhaps wrongly imprisoned Nick. Perfs across the board are solid but lack nuance, though this may be a byproduct of the distance between stage and audience in this West End house (which the production team attempts to bridge in the second half via Lorna Heavey's projections of faces in closeup).

The play feels as though it needs a smaller, more intimate space to effectively draw auds into its alluring web of connections.

Sets and costumes, Ben Stones; lighting, Johanna Town; original music and sound, Richard Hammarton; video and projections, Lorna Heavey; production stage manager, Patrick Molony. Opened, reviewed Sept. 28, 2009. Running time: 2 HOURS, 10 MIN.