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Love in other languages | IndyStar.com | The Indianapolis Star
Some of our most vital kinds of communication involve love. So imagine what can happen when a couple lives in different languages.
That struggle is at the center of "Love Person," a Phoenix Theatre production opening Thursday in a "rolling world premiere" through the National New Play Network. In the four-person drama, written by Aditi Brennan Kapil of Minneapolis, spoken and signed language, blunt e-mail exchanges and lofty Sanskrit poetry all contend for the characters' relationship loyalty and understanding.
Ram, a Sanskrit scholar, falls, via e-mail, for a woman named Vic, a veteran of two failed marriages. Ram doesn't know, though, that he's really communicating with her older, deaf lesbian sister, Free. Artificially sustained, the burgeoning relationship creates tension between the deaf woman and her lover, Maggie, a poetry professor.
Kapil plays with the gestural freedom and openness to interpretation of ASL as a parallel to poetry. In a note last month to the Phoenix cast and crew, Kapil wrote: "A few years ago I had the notion that Sanskrit and ASL are two languages with something in common, something that could make two people who live in these languages fall in love."
The primary challenge for director Bryan Fonseca has been to work with a deaf actress, Tami Lee Santimyer, and position actors face-to-face onstage for the script's ASL dialogue. Though she's an expert lip reader, Santimyer still needs feedback during the rehearsal process to be translated, including crucial offstage discussions when Fonseca and the cast analyze the script to come up with a consistent interpretation.
"This has been the biggest challenge I've had in years," Fonseca said, "and one of the most exciting projects I've had as a director. It's made me rethink how I direct shows."
The veteran director said he is being more verbally explicit, as well more physically active, during rehearsal with the cast and crew.
Audiences will be aware of the contrast of sound and silence, too, as sometimes a noisy scene is followed by one in sign language.
While "Love Person" isn't hard to follow, both hearing and deaf audience members sometimes will have to supply the meaning when one language temporarily yields to the other. Projected e-mail communication, with its notorious uncertainty of tone, poses a further interpretive challenge to characters and audience alike.
Fonseca believes Kapil's theme of love is fertile ground for exploring communication and its failures. "We've all been in relationships where things go stale and a conversation is needed that doesn't happen -- and breakups may occur."
Some of our most vital kinds of communication involve love. So imagine what can happen when a couple lives in different languages.
That struggle is at the center of "Love Person," a Phoenix Theatre production opening Thursday in a "rolling world premiere" through the National New Play Network. In the four-person drama, written by Aditi Brennan Kapil of Minneapolis, spoken and signed language, blunt e-mail exchanges and lofty Sanskrit poetry all contend for the characters' relationship loyalty and understanding.
Ram, a Sanskrit scholar, falls, via e-mail, for a woman named Vic, a veteran of two failed marriages. Ram doesn't know, though, that he's really communicating with her older, deaf lesbian sister, Free. Artificially sustained, the burgeoning relationship creates tension between the deaf woman and her lover, Maggie, a poetry professor.
Kapil plays with the gestural freedom and openness to interpretation of ASL as a parallel to poetry. In a note last month to the Phoenix cast and crew, Kapil wrote: "A few years ago I had the notion that Sanskrit and ASL are two languages with something in common, something that could make two people who live in these languages fall in love."
The primary challenge for director Bryan Fonseca has been to work with a deaf actress, Tami Lee Santimyer, and position actors face-to-face onstage for the script's ASL dialogue. Though she's an expert lip reader, Santimyer still needs feedback during the rehearsal process to be translated, including crucial offstage discussions when Fonseca and the cast analyze the script to come up with a consistent interpretation.
"This has been the biggest challenge I've had in years," Fonseca said, "and one of the most exciting projects I've had as a director. It's made me rethink how I direct shows."
The veteran director said he is being more verbally explicit, as well more physically active, during rehearsal with the cast and crew.
Audiences will be aware of the contrast of sound and silence, too, as sometimes a noisy scene is followed by one in sign language.
While "Love Person" isn't hard to follow, both hearing and deaf audience members sometimes will have to supply the meaning when one language temporarily yields to the other. Projected e-mail communication, with its notorious uncertainty of tone, poses a further interpretive challenge to characters and audience alike.
Fonseca believes Kapil's theme of love is fertile ground for exploring communication and its failures. "We've all been in relationships where things go stale and a conversation is needed that doesn't happen -- and breakups may occur."