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Last night I saw one of the most amazing pieces of theatre I have ever seen. I do not say this lightly. If the touring cast comes to your area, you need to go (sadly last night was that last night in Boston). I rarely go to the big touring casts anymore, they are overpriced and usually my cheap local theaters do a better job. This one I saw a snippet of during the Tonys, and I got really excited. OKay, I'm sure you are wondering by now what I am talking about....
There is a current revival of Big River (the Huck Finn musical) where half the actors are deaf. All hearing actors sing, speak, and sign their roles. The deaf actors sign their roles (which are voiced by someone else unobtrusively on the stage..mostly...I'll get there *grin*). The deaf actor playing Huck was absolutely wonderful, it's a shame that there isn't more deaf theatre, because this kid was better than most hearing actors I've seen. The guy playing Twain voiced him, which was especially neat (and a good directorial choice) because this actor originated the role 20 years ago, so that Huck sounded like I expected. I think that they were the most effective pairing, because I tended to forget that the voice wasn't coming out of the kid's mouth!
In one case, they twinned the two actors. This was for Pap, the drunken old lout of a father who suffers delirium tremens (alternately signed "shakes" or "crazy" depending on dialogue...I can't believe I remember that much ASL from high school). The first actor you see is deaf, but when he opens the doors on the mirror, there is the hearing actor! Thye of course go through a mirror routine, but then they twin the rest of the two scenes. It is especially funny when one drinks from the big jug of whiskey, because the other wipes his own mouth. Very comical. The deaf actor even managed to slur his signs! (I didn't know you could do that) Later, the deaf actor took the role of the Duke (someone else voiced it) and the hearing one took the role of the King. (Which was mighty amusing during the imposter part of the play, when the King had to pretend to be someone's deaf and dumb uncle.)
It is the rare play that I don't walk out of criticizing, even if I liked it. Here, the only big problem was that the Wang Center caused some technical issues with the sound. And if I were being really nitpicky, the actress playing Mary Jane had a voice that grated a bit. Other than that, it was amazing.
I really hope this starts a larger trend. There were so many deaf members of the audience, many of whom had never been to live theatre before. I realized that I knew quite a bit of ASL (when I got bored in class in high school I would watch the interpretor instead of paying good attention to the lesson...this was mostly because the classes I was in with the EDCO kids were crappy electives that none of us wanted to be in), but Dan said that he started to follow along a bit by the end. And aside from its uniqueness, it was just a wonderfully directed and put together piece of theatre.
Oh well, enough gushing, time to get down to work...
There is a current revival of Big River (the Huck Finn musical) where half the actors are deaf. All hearing actors sing, speak, and sign their roles. The deaf actors sign their roles (which are voiced by someone else unobtrusively on the stage..mostly...I'll get there *grin*). The deaf actor playing Huck was absolutely wonderful, it's a shame that there isn't more deaf theatre, because this kid was better than most hearing actors I've seen. The guy playing Twain voiced him, which was especially neat (and a good directorial choice) because this actor originated the role 20 years ago, so that Huck sounded like I expected. I think that they were the most effective pairing, because I tended to forget that the voice wasn't coming out of the kid's mouth!
In one case, they twinned the two actors. This was for Pap, the drunken old lout of a father who suffers delirium tremens (alternately signed "shakes" or "crazy" depending on dialogue...I can't believe I remember that much ASL from high school). The first actor you see is deaf, but when he opens the doors on the mirror, there is the hearing actor! Thye of course go through a mirror routine, but then they twin the rest of the two scenes. It is especially funny when one drinks from the big jug of whiskey, because the other wipes his own mouth. Very comical. The deaf actor even managed to slur his signs! (I didn't know you could do that) Later, the deaf actor took the role of the Duke (someone else voiced it) and the hearing one took the role of the King. (Which was mighty amusing during the imposter part of the play, when the King had to pretend to be someone's deaf and dumb uncle.)
It is the rare play that I don't walk out of criticizing, even if I liked it. Here, the only big problem was that the Wang Center caused some technical issues with the sound. And if I were being really nitpicky, the actress playing Mary Jane had a voice that grated a bit. Other than that, it was amazing.
I really hope this starts a larger trend. There were so many deaf members of the audience, many of whom had never been to live theatre before. I realized that I knew quite a bit of ASL (when I got bored in class in high school I would watch the interpretor instead of paying good attention to the lesson...this was mostly because the classes I was in with the EDCO kids were crappy electives that none of us wanted to be in), but Dan said that he started to follow along a bit by the end. And aside from its uniqueness, it was just a wonderfully directed and put together piece of theatre.
Oh well, enough gushing, time to get down to work...
