YORK company Tongue Tied Theatre have developed their new show in collaboration with Washington insider and congressional speech wrier Sol Max.

Opening tomorrow in the York Theatre Royal Studio, Conversations Not Fit For The American Dinner Table is a work in progress that takes a satirical look at the state of the States. Or one man, six masks, 50 mental states, as the show blurb nails it.

“For some time I wanted to see if mask could work as a one-man performance style,” says that one man, New York actor Kyle Davies, who attended L’Ecole Internationale de Theatre Jacques Lecoq in Paris, graduating from its Laboratoire d’Étude du Mouvement.

“Then I wanted to do a demi-mask one-man satirical show parodying the United States, where right now all the best satire is to be found in cartoons like South Park.”

A mutual friend put Kyle in touch with Sol. “We started talking about creating a piece that would translate to a British audience and what themes we have in common – and what’s dissimilar about the two countries. Sol said ‘Guns’.”

From that starting point Kyle ‘suckered’ Sol into writing three monologues that he tried out at the Little Festival of Everything in Coxwold last year. “The response was fascinating,” says Kyle. “They really loved it as there’s nothing funnier over here than laughing at America.”

Fellow Tongue Tied artistic director Lizzie Wiggs recalls the reaction, too. “It was interesting to see their energy as they were watching and thinking ‘This is America’ but then thinking ‘Oh, hang on, it’s also this country too’, which stopped them in their tracks.”

Over from America last month, Sol accompanied the Tongue Tied duo as they presented the first work-in-progress performance of the latest version of Conversations at the Bristol Old Vic’s Ferment Festival on January 24.

“It’s been very interesting as a writing project because I hadn’t worked with mask or written for it before, so I didn’t know where it would go but it’s turned out that it wasn’t limiting and that like a cartoon, you can take it so much further,” says Sol.

The early version was built around three American stereotypes, Joe Conservative, the Liberal Housewife and the Redneck. “I was worried before I watched it; would it come across as demeaning?” says Sol. “But seeing Kyle do it gives it its uniqueness. I thought I would have to hold something back, but in fact I can really push it.”

In ‘pushing it’, the show has acquired a stronger focus. “It still functions as a collection of monologues by different characters, but it now has a thematic flow that has come into shape: the theme of control,” says Kyle.

“It’s very difficult to self-analyse, but easy to criticise others,” says Sol. “So we started at the furthest point from Britain and used that to explore the more ubiquitous forms of political gamesmanship.”

The uniting factor in the USA and Britain is fear, not least when spreading information and counter-information on social media, suggests Kyle. “The true power of this piece is shedding light on that,” he says.

“In the 21st century, with liberal and conservative outlooks on the social networks, what is noticeable is how two people can have such different interpretations of on event,” says Sol.

“But it’s also the way they will edit the information in different ways to give people what they want to hear, so there are different ‘facts’ being given from the same event,” notes director Lizzie. “Just what is the truth?”

One man in six masks and 50 mental states will do his best to answer that question in York tomorrow and Saturday.

• Tongue Tied Theatre in Conversations Not Fit For The American Dinner Table, York Theatre Royal Studio, tomorrow at 7.45pm; Saturday at 2pm and 7.45pm. Tickets: £8 on 01904 623568 or yorktheatreroyal.co.uk
Suitable for age 16 plus.