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Playhouse actors 'Speaking in Tongues'

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By James Sprague, Contributing Writer 2:05 PM Friday, February 3, 2012

CINCINNATI — An upcoming production at one of the region’s most renowned playhouses is bringing with it a roller coaster filled chock full of love, deceit, betrayal and psychological thrills.

Cincinnati’s Playhouse in the Park is hosting the production “Speaking in Tongues,” beginning Saturday at the Playhouse’s Thompson Shelterhouse Theatre.

The award-winning production — it garnered Best Adapted Screenplay for the film “Latana” from the American Film Institute in 2001 — was written by Australian playwright Andrew Bovell, and delves into the betrayals of two married couples and how those betrayals connect to five random strangers, among them a missing woman and a long-lost love.

The Playhouse was spurred to add the production to its 2011-12 theater season due to the play’s intelligent and challenging nature, said Ed Stern, producing artistic director for the Playhouse in the Park.

“I love the smartness of the play and how it’s a jigsaw puzzle,” Stern said.

“Throughout the play, more and more pieces are given to the audience to see the full picture.”

That picture painted in “Speaking In Tongues,” however, is one that is consistently changing, said Michael Evan Haney, the production’s director.

“The action of the play forces the audience to constantly re-evaluate what they are seeing and compels them to reach their own conclusions about what has happened,” Haney said.

“I hope the audience will feel like eavesdroppers and detectives, and that they will be challenged and beguiled by this play.”

The production, however, doesn’t solely focus on the character’s betrayals, Haney said.

“The play also explores our ability to forgive, as well as our need to be forgiven and what life can be like without the possibility of absolution,” Haney said.

The production covers all these realms through a new form created by the playwright Bovell, Haney said.

“ ‘Speaking in Tongues’ is similar to a lot of our edgier/new work in the Shelterhouse Theatre,” Haney said.

“However, the play has a style that is unique. It’s different from any other play that I’ve ever read or directed in the way the plot is constructed and the dialogue that overlaps.”

The production’s cast features a quartet of Playhouse veterans — Bruce Cromer, R. Ward Duffy, Amy Warner and Henny Russell — with previous Playhouse productions under their belts such as “King Lear,” “A Christmas Carol,” “Othello” and “One.”

It’s a talented and patient cast that Haney feels blessed to have worked on such a production with, he said.

“It has been a beautiful challenge to learn the music of this play and to discover the mysteries of these stories,” Haney said.

“I hope audiences find this piece as exciting, thought-provoking and sexy as we have.”