• Read the emag review of the AnglistenTheater’s production of Speaking in Tongues.
• Take a look at our programme.

SUMMER 2017

Andrew Bovell, Speaking in Tongues

Speaking in Tongues is an AWGIE awarded play by Andrew Bovell, an Australian writer for stage and screen. Since it was first staged in August 1996 in Sydney it has been part of the programmes in theatres not only in Australia but also in the US and Europe. Following the huge success on stage, Bovell also adapted his play for the screen as the critically acclaimed film Lantana in 2001.

All of the characters in the play find themselves in situations of change and crisis in their lives, but seem to be unable to find solutions. Misunderstandings and deceits are the result. The play shows the characters “yearning for meaning and grabbing onto small moment of hope and humour to combat an increasing sense of alienation” (Bovell). This feeling of alienation is also mirrored in the play's structure, which connects its characters in various combinations throughout its three parts. At the centre of the play is a woman's disappearance that gets gradually disentangled by the figures in a network of betrayals, intimacies, closeness and distance.

Links:

• short biography of Andrew Bovell
• read, or listen to Andrew Bovell's Keynote Address at the National Play Festival 2014 in Sydney, celebrating the role of the writer in our theatre and culture.