Ruth Negga to star in new show at the Barbican – with musical instruments played by swords

Academy Award-nominated actor Ruth Negga will lead the world premiere of Quiet Songs by Finn Beames and Company, a new music theatre piece combining a single actor, a string quartet, and an “armoury of swords.”

The production, which won the famed Oxford Samuel Beckett Theatre Trust Award, will run from 22 October to 2 November at the Pit in the Barbican Centre as part of its 2024 autumn programme.

Written, composed, and directed by Finn Beames, Quiet Songs is a semi-autobiographical exploration of adolescence. It depicts a young gay person’s journey to find self-expression in a hostile world. In a twist, string instruments will be played with swords.

Negga, returning to London theatre after her 2011 role in Playboy of the Western World at the Old Vic, expressed her admiration for the vividness of Beames’ writing: “It’s so hard to make work without funding. This is not news. The support and encouragement from initiatives like the Oxford Samuel Beckett Theatre Trust Award is needed and necessary. Especially for work that is original in all aspects of the word. Nurture, care and attention… the time and space to be brave… the opportunity to bet on one’s own originality… to risk authenticity. That all seems so in tune with what so much of Beckett and his work means to me”.

“The vividness of Finn’s language struck me immediately. Not only because of its beauty lyrically and the sharpness of his imagery, but he is able to expertly and so fluidly locate the cruelty and the strange otherness of adolescence; a visceral, full body affair. How alien it can feel. How our bodies can be unreliable, vulnerable and often comical allies. The stakes are always high in our quest to belong, to be understood or at least to understand ourselves. But does anything ever actually feel as acute as it does in adolescence?

“I look forward to collaborating with Finn, the brilliant musicians and armourer indeed in creating a truly multisensory experience. And I am very much looking forward to working at the Barbican for the first time. I have admired it from near and far for many decades and its commitment to exploring the bold and the brave.”

The production marks Negga’s first performance at the Barbican and promises a bold, experimental approach that reflects the values of the Oxford Samuel Beckett Theatre Trust Award. Quiet Songs features four onstage musicians: Fra Rustumji (violin), Chihiro Ono (viola), Hoda Jahanpour (cello), and Thea Sayer (double bass). The creative team includes set and costume design by Samal Blak, lighting design by Bethany Gupwell, sound design by Tingying Dong, creative armourer Zoe Phillips, and fight direction by Bret Yount.