A string quartet in school uniforms scrape their bows along the edges of swords while an adolescent boy in the foetal position recounts his fear of the school bullies waiting to make fun of his breaking voice.
Quiet Songs, the debut show from writer, director and composer Finn Beames, is a slight and strange undertaking, telling the semi-autobiographical story of a queer coming-of-age. Oscar-nominated actor Ruth Negga is the Boy, artfully inhabiting the space between a child’s gangly looseness and a teen’s self-consciousness in her performance, languorously draping herself across the bare stage as she unearths a tale of bodies betraying identity and the desperate quest to remain within the norm.
At its core, Quiet Songs is a simple story told with overwrought complexity. Negga’s Boy is being picked on at his regressive school because of the way his voice sounds; if only he can skip this uncomfortable stage of change, he will fit in and his burgeoning desires might remain unnoticed, he reasons. He takes matters into his own hands and faces disastrous consequences.
The hour-long narrative is punctuated by flourishes that add little to the storytelling. There are swords aplenty: ones being bowed, several boasting primitive symbolism while hanging from the ceiling, and a pair used in a slow-motion interpretive fight scene – each moment filling time with stilted choreographed movement. Bethany Gupwell’s lighting, meanwhile, conjures the harsh strip-lighting of a bleak classroom, then for half the production plunges the stage into darkness, leaving the audience unable to see much of Negga’s performance.
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.
• At the Barbican, London, until 2 November
