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Quiet Songs: Finn Beames & Company

The Oxford Samuel Beckett Theatre Trust Award

Actor Ruth Negga stares thoughtfully off-camera as a golden glow lights the stage behind her.

★★★★ Academy Award nominee 'Ruth Negga gives a revalatory performance' in this new show that creates a beautifully unsettling world where string instruments are played with swords.

A bullied teenager feels their voice breaking. Can it ever be fixed? In this coming-of-age tale about a young gay person seeking identity in an unkind world, musicians and their instruments become the storytellers. 

Told through a transfixing fusion of words, live music and meticulous staging, Quiet Songs is both an unflinching portrait of adolescence and a moving reminder of what our voices reveal about our truest selves. 

Finn Beames & Company is a changing group of collaborators making music-led work for live performance. Quiet Songs is their first production, as the winner of the 2024 Oxford Samuel Beckett Theatre Trust Award.

Running time: approximately 1 hour (no interval)

Age guidance: 14+

This production contains haze. There are references to violence, self-harm and homophobia. 

Audio described performance
Tue 29 Oct, 7.45pm
Audio described by Caroline Burn
Touch tour at 7pm. The meeting point for the touch tour is in the Pit Foyer on Level -2.

Funded by The Oxford Samuel Beckett Theatre Trust Award and co-produced by Barbican, London and Oedipa.

Supported by the Maria Björnson Memorial Fund and the Garrick Charitable Trust

Lead artwork by Rebecca Pitt. 

Production and rehearsal photography by Helen Murray.

 

Reviews

‘It is exquisite stagecraft and dazzling invention and visceral darkness‘
‘Ruth Negga gives a revelatory performance‘
‘Intoxicating‘

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