Miss-Delectable
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the HUB
Icarus Falling is tackling a tough translation job this weekend and next: They're going to translate love.
In Aditi Brennan Kapil's new script, "Love Person," the actors present, interpret and translate love into English, American Sign Language and Sanskrit. They send it out via their hands, their voices and the Ethernet.
The translators range from Nicole Gaines, a deaf actor appearing on stage for the first time, to Addie Ulrey, an actor studying theater in Chicago. Rounding out the love quadrangle are Elizabeth Tod and Onkar Singh.
The new work is a touching production exploring communication and love. Free (Gaines) and Maggie (Tod) are longtime lovers who have settled into a comfortable relationship that is filled with a sweet passion. Free's sister Vic (Ulrey) is falling madly in love with Ram (Singh), a Sanskrit scholar who specializes in poetry. While Maggie coaches Vic, Free masquerades as her sister in a Cyrano-like ruse which her sister and lover are ignorant of.
With all the languages that fly through this production, it's brought some interesting technical challenges to Icarus Falling. They'll use a projector for the e-mails and to translate the Sanskrit and ASL. They'll use ASL interpreters to translate the English. Tod, an actress who is proficient in ASL, will often voice what Gaines is signing. IF has brought a professor into rehearsals who watches the ASL and makes sure it's accurate.
"I've never done anything where whole chunks aren't verbalized," said Singh, who came to the play knowing Sanskrit. "This show feels more personal than others. The director doesn't bring all the elements and we just show up and act. I bring a part of myself."
It's also required the actors to be far more line-perfect early on than they are in many productions. They quickly learned that if they started paraphrasing or skipping a part that Gaines would be lost with no way of figuring out where they were.
"This experience (seeing the play) will be a good one for a hearing person," Gaines signed. "They'll learn about what it is like to be deaf. I'm in the deaf world every day. The deaf don't often come to theater. This brings hearing, deaf and interpreters together."
Tod agreed. "The audience is going to understand what it is like to be a deaf person. They'll have to read to see the translation, looking at the interpreter the way deaf people do. It's a wonderful love story and I'm a sucker for a good love story.
This production is technically a "workshop" production as world premiere rights have been granted to the theater at which the playwright is a resident artist. However, it is a full production of the new work. Kapil has not been in residence making changes to the script. Instead, that's a process she's been doing over eight months with three different theaters - Atlanta's Actor's Express, Indianapolis' Phoenix Theatre and Minneapolis' Mixed Blood.
Meanwhile, the actors in this production have found much to explore. Ulrey talked about how meaningful it has been to learn a little ASL in this process and that by being around it in rehearsal she's discovered "what a theatricality ASL can have with the language. There are things I don't anticipate, different aspects to consider when blocking. ... Any good play draws you into a world that is foreign and makes it feel like home."
This show - a play that one actor characterized as a deaf show done for a hearing audience - sets out to make several strange worlds feel like home to its audience.
• Show info: "Love Person," staged by Icarus Falling; 8 p.m. Friday and Saturday and July 6-7 at the Black Child and Family Institute, 835 W. Genesee St. Tickets: $10, $5 for first-timers. Info: 290-4375.
Icarus Falling is tackling a tough translation job this weekend and next: They're going to translate love.
In Aditi Brennan Kapil's new script, "Love Person," the actors present, interpret and translate love into English, American Sign Language and Sanskrit. They send it out via their hands, their voices and the Ethernet.
The translators range from Nicole Gaines, a deaf actor appearing on stage for the first time, to Addie Ulrey, an actor studying theater in Chicago. Rounding out the love quadrangle are Elizabeth Tod and Onkar Singh.
The new work is a touching production exploring communication and love. Free (Gaines) and Maggie (Tod) are longtime lovers who have settled into a comfortable relationship that is filled with a sweet passion. Free's sister Vic (Ulrey) is falling madly in love with Ram (Singh), a Sanskrit scholar who specializes in poetry. While Maggie coaches Vic, Free masquerades as her sister in a Cyrano-like ruse which her sister and lover are ignorant of.
With all the languages that fly through this production, it's brought some interesting technical challenges to Icarus Falling. They'll use a projector for the e-mails and to translate the Sanskrit and ASL. They'll use ASL interpreters to translate the English. Tod, an actress who is proficient in ASL, will often voice what Gaines is signing. IF has brought a professor into rehearsals who watches the ASL and makes sure it's accurate.
"I've never done anything where whole chunks aren't verbalized," said Singh, who came to the play knowing Sanskrit. "This show feels more personal than others. The director doesn't bring all the elements and we just show up and act. I bring a part of myself."
It's also required the actors to be far more line-perfect early on than they are in many productions. They quickly learned that if they started paraphrasing or skipping a part that Gaines would be lost with no way of figuring out where they were.
"This experience (seeing the play) will be a good one for a hearing person," Gaines signed. "They'll learn about what it is like to be deaf. I'm in the deaf world every day. The deaf don't often come to theater. This brings hearing, deaf and interpreters together."
Tod agreed. "The audience is going to understand what it is like to be a deaf person. They'll have to read to see the translation, looking at the interpreter the way deaf people do. It's a wonderful love story and I'm a sucker for a good love story.
This production is technically a "workshop" production as world premiere rights have been granted to the theater at which the playwright is a resident artist. However, it is a full production of the new work. Kapil has not been in residence making changes to the script. Instead, that's a process she's been doing over eight months with three different theaters - Atlanta's Actor's Express, Indianapolis' Phoenix Theatre and Minneapolis' Mixed Blood.
Meanwhile, the actors in this production have found much to explore. Ulrey talked about how meaningful it has been to learn a little ASL in this process and that by being around it in rehearsal she's discovered "what a theatricality ASL can have with the language. There are things I don't anticipate, different aspects to consider when blocking. ... Any good play draws you into a world that is foreign and makes it feel like home."
This show - a play that one actor characterized as a deaf show done for a hearing audience - sets out to make several strange worlds feel like home to its audience.
• Show info: "Love Person," staged by Icarus Falling; 8 p.m. Friday and Saturday and July 6-7 at the Black Child and Family Institute, 835 W. Genesee St. Tickets: $10, $5 for first-timers. Info: 290-4375.