Writers: Sam Shepherd and Joseph Chaikin
Director: Laura Allen
Tongues & Savage/Love does its best to defy easy categorisation; the show is a series of monologues and yet is not a one-person show, thanks to performers Bernice Pike and Suzy Whitefield taking turns centre stage. It’s also a live musical performance but one that alternates between being music for its own sake and a soundtrack to the ongoing performance. It’s a wonderful medley of activity, that unfortunately never becomes more than the sum of its parts.
Some of these parts are excellent. Chris Clarke on the harp is a sight to behold, dexterous and skillful in matching the tempo and mood of the actor opposite, while at the same time easily shifting into long solo routines. The highlight of the night is easily when, on top of all this, Clarke begins to sing beautifully while playing – evidently an extremely talented musician. Across the stage, Juan Carlos on the electric guitar is also highly adept at fleshing out the world of the currently running monologue, flitting through a variety of playing styles, never missing a beat in the process.
Other parts are less excellent. The various characters brought to life by Pike and Whitefield feel like routine caricatures, bursting out a minute’s worth of lines about a place, person or abstract feeling before switching rapidly to the next. Clear attention is paid to making sure the physicality and voice of each character are varied and the talent on display in delivering this is obvious from both Pike and Whitefield. Less obvious is a point to all this effort, as what each character says rarely if ever links up with another, narratively or thematically.
Crucially, Pike and Whitefield never interact with one another despite the feeling that the whole night is trending toward a climactic moment where they will, where something will click so the show can finally coalesce. Unfortunately, the duo never strays from their monologuing, the closest we get being a brief glance of acknowledgement with one another to close the night.
This is a show with admirable ambitions, and when it comes to musical performance it certainly achieves them, but its disparate elements are still in need of a story to bring everything together.
Runs until 25 January 2024
