Review Roundup: QUIET SONGS at Barbican

Finn Beames' Quiet Songs is being presented at Barbican through November 2. Quiet songs is a coming-of-age story about a young gay person seeking identity in an unkind world, musicians and their instruments become the storytellers. 

Quiet Songs offers a bold portrayal of adolescence and a poignant reflection on how our voices reveal our most authentic selves. The production stars Oscar-nominated actor Ruth Negga. See what the critics are saying...

Ammar, Kalia, The Guardian: When the quartet play their instruments and Negga is given space (and light) to act, the effect can be mesmeric. At one point, Beames’ underscoring bolsters the Boy’s retelling of a crush that meanders from a fizz of excitement (sharp plucked melody) to wistful longing (legato bowing) and finally puncturing humiliation (scrapes, squeals and the sounds of swords). Suddenly, we are transported back to the violent swings of adolescent emotion and their potential for danger when our desires fail to cohere. Yet, these moments are too few and too far between, making Quiet Songs a tender story conveyed by a shaky hand.

Daniel Lewis, The Times: However, the biggest disconnect in the piece is musical. Given how central the sound of a voice becomes in Quiet Songs, it does seem a shame more isn’t done with the strings to chart the Boy’s journey. The quartet seem to spend more time playing the many swords lying around, or playing with them: a fencing match with swords and bows creates striking, if slightly detached, set pieces under Bethany Gupwell’s lighting, reminiscent of school corridor fluorescents.

Andrzej Lukowski, Time Out: Beames has written it, directed it and composed the music and the words are just a facet of this lushly dark rite of a show that exists predominantly as movement and sounds and tableaux and the menacing, glittering symbolism of the swords. It is exquisite stagecraft and dazzling invention and visceral darkness. Maybe I could extrapolate the idea that its formal otherliness reflects the young Beames’ sense of alienation. Or maybe he just really likes swords. 

Paul Vale, The Stage: Each aspect of the staging informs the narrative, from Beames’ haunting compositions to Gupwell’s cerebral lighting design to Tingying Dong’s sensitive sound design, which brings harmony to the wealth of unconventional instrumentals. Yet for all the experimental and intellectual devices at play, you never lose sight of the poor child struggling to fit in in a world that continually tells him he’s an outsider.