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Beyond words
On the first day of rehearsals of “Children of a Lesser God” at Lyceum Theatre, the hearing and deaf actors in the cast communicated mostly through a production interpreter. By the last day of rehearsals, the actors had broken down communication barriers.
They had more success than the characters they play in “Children of a Lesser God,” which on the surface is about the trouble James Leeds, a young speech therapist, and his deaf-from-birth wife, Sarah Norman, have communicating with each other. Norman refuses to learn to lip read or speak — her previous attempts at speaking ridiculed by hearing people as grotesque. Her refusal frustrates Leeds, who wants her to speak so that she can be independent, not realizing he is essentially asking Norman to “pass for hearing” and to deny her deafness.
The play also touches upon the conflicts within the deaf world between people who are completely deaf and those who are hard of hearing, the deaf world’s struggle for equality, and the universal struggle of love.
James Leeds is played by Quin Gresham, artistic director at the Lyceum. The play first captured Gresham’s attention in high school. He was eager to incorporate it into the Lyceum’s playbill this year as a way to expose the theater’s audience to deaf culture, which few hearing people experience, he said.
“Theater as an art form always has the human task of giving voice to everybody,” Gresham said.
The overall theme of the play, Gresham believes, is the truth that communication can break down between anyone, no matter how hard people try to understand each other. “The play is mainly a dissection of communication, not just between the deaf and hearing worlds, but that we all have things within us that can’t be communicated,” he said.
The play opened Wednesday and will run through next Sunday, including a performance today at 8 p.m. The Lyceum will offer a matinee performance next Sunday for deaf people with two interpreters from Columbia Interpreting Services. Part of the proceeds from the production will go toward local deaf services.
The play was written in 1980 by Mark Medoff. A hearing playwright, Medoff wanted to write a play for Phyllis Frelich, a deaf actress, after learning from her there were few roles for deaf actors in the canon of hearing theater. It’s still difficult today. “It is extremely difficult for deaf actors to find work because of the scarcity of roles out there, even though the pool of deaf actors isn’t all that large,” said Garrett Zuercher, a deaf actor from New York City who plays Orin, a student turned radical deaf activist in the play.
The play won the Antoinette Perry Awards for Excellence in Theater for Best Play in 1980, also known as the Tony Awards.
“It was groundbreaking and accurate when it was first performed 27 years ago, but many of its themes and issues are moot now due to advances in technology and deaf culture,” Zuercher said.
“For the most part, the play is viewed with mixed feelings in the deaf culture: We’re glad to be able to see deaf people on stage, but there are many of us — myself included — that would like to see a more current, updated play that is relevant to the world we live in today,” Zuercher said in an e-mail.
Stephanie Logan, executive director of The LEAD Institute, Leadership through Education and Advocacy for the Deaf, said at first she was worried when Gresham approached her about helping him learn sign language for his role. “It’s an easy show to do badly,” she said.
Gresham started studying sign language in the spring, she said. “Stephanie and I worked on the script in earnest two to three months before the play to build my vocabulary so it wasn’t just rote memorization,” Gresham said.
He doesn’t consider himself fluent now, but he is able to converse freely with deaf cast members.
Gresham’s own experience this week somewhat mirrors his character’s. At first James Leeds’ sign language is weak, but as he and Sarah grow closer together, he signs more and more, eventually until his fingers ache from overuse. Gresham spent time Monday soaking is own sore hands, he said.
With four hearing actors and three deaf actors in the play, it would have been easy for the cast to suffer communication problems, but just as Gresham threw himself in to learning sign language, the hearing and deaf actors have both made an effort to understand each other, said Sarah Keatting. A hard-of-hearing actor, Keatting is cast as Lydia in the play, a hard-of-hearing student eager to speak “normally” — the opposite of Sarah Norman.
“Everyone is patient with each other,” she said. “Those who don’t know how to sign are taught sign language, and those who can’t hear … learn ways to adapt and work with us.”
The cast also used interpreters during production to facilitate their communication.
Gresham said Logan not only helped him learn sign language, but also helped him understand deaf culture. “Not that I’m inside of it, but I didn’t feel too much distance,” he said.
Many of the actors have personal insights about the play. Talia Dagan, the actor who plays Sarah Norman, was born deaf just like her character and said it’s been her dream since she was a little girl to play her. “Sarah and I have somewhat of a similar background,” Dagan said in an e-mail. “We both are deaf and have strong personalities and we both struggled and broke the barrier eventually when we accepted the hearing world.
“It’s convenient playing Sarah because I understand where she is coming from,” Dagan said.
Other actors had a harder time. Leslie Lorusso plays Edna Klein, a lawyer who takes up Orin and Sarah Norman’s case against their school. Klein is the bumbling, insulting hearing person in the play. She refers to Sarah Norman as “deaf and dumb” when she realizes Sarah doesn’t speak. “The challenging part for me in this show is showing the audience members that when put into the deaf world as a hearing person, you can feel uncomfortable — she can’t empathize, she can only sympathize,” Lorusso said during rehearsals.
This entire play is about people trying and failing to make connections. It’s something Zuercher wishes more hearing people would try to do with people who are deaf, he said. “Many people are scared and don’t know how to act or speak around deaf people,” he said. “The most important thing, as Sarah and her mother say in the show, is just to ‘try.’
“It’s much easier than most people think,” he said.
On the first day of rehearsals of “Children of a Lesser God” at Lyceum Theatre, the hearing and deaf actors in the cast communicated mostly through a production interpreter. By the last day of rehearsals, the actors had broken down communication barriers.
They had more success than the characters they play in “Children of a Lesser God,” which on the surface is about the trouble James Leeds, a young speech therapist, and his deaf-from-birth wife, Sarah Norman, have communicating with each other. Norman refuses to learn to lip read or speak — her previous attempts at speaking ridiculed by hearing people as grotesque. Her refusal frustrates Leeds, who wants her to speak so that she can be independent, not realizing he is essentially asking Norman to “pass for hearing” and to deny her deafness.
The play also touches upon the conflicts within the deaf world between people who are completely deaf and those who are hard of hearing, the deaf world’s struggle for equality, and the universal struggle of love.
James Leeds is played by Quin Gresham, artistic director at the Lyceum. The play first captured Gresham’s attention in high school. He was eager to incorporate it into the Lyceum’s playbill this year as a way to expose the theater’s audience to deaf culture, which few hearing people experience, he said.
“Theater as an art form always has the human task of giving voice to everybody,” Gresham said.
The overall theme of the play, Gresham believes, is the truth that communication can break down between anyone, no matter how hard people try to understand each other. “The play is mainly a dissection of communication, not just between the deaf and hearing worlds, but that we all have things within us that can’t be communicated,” he said.
The play opened Wednesday and will run through next Sunday, including a performance today at 8 p.m. The Lyceum will offer a matinee performance next Sunday for deaf people with two interpreters from Columbia Interpreting Services. Part of the proceeds from the production will go toward local deaf services.
The play was written in 1980 by Mark Medoff. A hearing playwright, Medoff wanted to write a play for Phyllis Frelich, a deaf actress, after learning from her there were few roles for deaf actors in the canon of hearing theater. It’s still difficult today. “It is extremely difficult for deaf actors to find work because of the scarcity of roles out there, even though the pool of deaf actors isn’t all that large,” said Garrett Zuercher, a deaf actor from New York City who plays Orin, a student turned radical deaf activist in the play.
The play won the Antoinette Perry Awards for Excellence in Theater for Best Play in 1980, also known as the Tony Awards.
“It was groundbreaking and accurate when it was first performed 27 years ago, but many of its themes and issues are moot now due to advances in technology and deaf culture,” Zuercher said.
“For the most part, the play is viewed with mixed feelings in the deaf culture: We’re glad to be able to see deaf people on stage, but there are many of us — myself included — that would like to see a more current, updated play that is relevant to the world we live in today,” Zuercher said in an e-mail.
Stephanie Logan, executive director of The LEAD Institute, Leadership through Education and Advocacy for the Deaf, said at first she was worried when Gresham approached her about helping him learn sign language for his role. “It’s an easy show to do badly,” she said.
Gresham started studying sign language in the spring, she said. “Stephanie and I worked on the script in earnest two to three months before the play to build my vocabulary so it wasn’t just rote memorization,” Gresham said.
He doesn’t consider himself fluent now, but he is able to converse freely with deaf cast members.
Gresham’s own experience this week somewhat mirrors his character’s. At first James Leeds’ sign language is weak, but as he and Sarah grow closer together, he signs more and more, eventually until his fingers ache from overuse. Gresham spent time Monday soaking is own sore hands, he said.
With four hearing actors and three deaf actors in the play, it would have been easy for the cast to suffer communication problems, but just as Gresham threw himself in to learning sign language, the hearing and deaf actors have both made an effort to understand each other, said Sarah Keatting. A hard-of-hearing actor, Keatting is cast as Lydia in the play, a hard-of-hearing student eager to speak “normally” — the opposite of Sarah Norman.
“Everyone is patient with each other,” she said. “Those who don’t know how to sign are taught sign language, and those who can’t hear … learn ways to adapt and work with us.”
The cast also used interpreters during production to facilitate their communication.
Gresham said Logan not only helped him learn sign language, but also helped him understand deaf culture. “Not that I’m inside of it, but I didn’t feel too much distance,” he said.
Many of the actors have personal insights about the play. Talia Dagan, the actor who plays Sarah Norman, was born deaf just like her character and said it’s been her dream since she was a little girl to play her. “Sarah and I have somewhat of a similar background,” Dagan said in an e-mail. “We both are deaf and have strong personalities and we both struggled and broke the barrier eventually when we accepted the hearing world.
“It’s convenient playing Sarah because I understand where she is coming from,” Dagan said.
Other actors had a harder time. Leslie Lorusso plays Edna Klein, a lawyer who takes up Orin and Sarah Norman’s case against their school. Klein is the bumbling, insulting hearing person in the play. She refers to Sarah Norman as “deaf and dumb” when she realizes Sarah doesn’t speak. “The challenging part for me in this show is showing the audience members that when put into the deaf world as a hearing person, you can feel uncomfortable — she can’t empathize, she can only sympathize,” Lorusso said during rehearsals.
This entire play is about people trying and failing to make connections. It’s something Zuercher wishes more hearing people would try to do with people who are deaf, he said. “Many people are scared and don’t know how to act or speak around deaf people,” he said. “The most important thing, as Sarah and her mother say in the show, is just to ‘try.’
“It’s much easier than most people think,” he said.