I hated Big River. Well, no, I didn’t, not really. I saw it at Ford’s Theatre, with Chris Corrigan as Huck Finn. It was entertaining enough. I clapped enthusiastically along with everyone else, but as soon as I left the theatre, I couldn’t stop thinking.

How much was it really the product of a Deaf theatre company? How much was it really the work of Deaf artists? Or, okay, if given Big River’s Deaf genealogy, how much of it pandered to hearing audiences and abandoned Deaf audiences?

For one thing, it’s a musical. This means audience players who sat on the sides of the house could see the TV screen where someone would prompt the Deaf players so their signing was in time with the music.

Chris and I took advantage of Ford’s Theater’s awesome handheld captioning, on the advice of another theatregoer who said there were gibberish words accompanied by gibberish signs (how the signmasters decided to sign “Royal Nonesuch,” I’d still like to know). Good thing we did, because apart from the brilliant Deaf talent on the stage, we could barely comprehend the hearing actors, months of sign preparation notwithstanding.

Too bad — my sister later said Tom Sawyer’s singing voice would melt gold.

There is also a scene, much acclaimed by Time Magazine, during the song “Waiting for the Light to Shine,” there’s a moment where all falls — auditory-wise, anyway — silent. The actors continue to sign as if the music were still playing. The contrast is quite striking… for those who were listening. For Deaf audiences whose experience is primarily visual, the effect is neglible.

There were, indeed, a few rare moments of genius. For example, Pap’s character was played by two actors who shared the signing responsibility (although only one was responsible for the voice).

Still, the effect of hearing expectations of Deaf theatre production are too apparent. I once aspired to a career in theatre arts. Though I could still be a light designer or a playwright, I quickly dropped the idea of acting — I was disillusioned by job prospects. I would always be limited to being cast as “the deaf girl” (a la Sho Stern’s “deaf Megan” role in the cable TV show “Weeds”) or have to participate in deaf plays where hearing standards and expectations were still present (like “Big River”). I would never, in my estimation, truly be able to focus solely on being a thespian.

On June 26, 1996, renowned black playwright August Wilson stood in front of the Theatre Communications Group and vilified the industry for sabotaging Black theatre by lack of funding and representation.

The need to alter our relationship to the society and to alter the shared expectations of ourselves as a racial group I find of greater urgency… I believe that race matters — that is the largest, most identifiable and most important part of our personality. It is the largest part of our personality. It is the largest category of identification because it is the one that most influences your perception of yourself, and it is the one to which others in the world of men most respond.

In our plays, invariably, we provide voice interpreters. In many productions even, voice interpreters are also actors. Access for our hearing patrons (and I do not use the word “patron” lightly) is paramount, it seems, even at the disadvantage of the deaf audience member.

A recent co-production of Gallaudet’s Theatre Arts Department and Amaryllis’ ASL/spoken English rendition of one of my favorite Shakespeare plays, “Much Ado About Nothing,” was one of the most successful adaptations. It takes talent and serious creative muscle to transfer the double-entendres of Bard language to ASL.

However, the weaknesses in that production came from, once again, the need for a Deaf play to be “hearing-accessible.” Never mind that in any hearing play a Deaf audience member attends, the interpreters are relegated to the side of the stage; in a Deaf production, the interpreters for hearing patrons often interfere directly with the play itself.

In “Much Ado,” scenes in which only one or two characters should have been present were problematic — instead we watched three or four actors on stage. A sense of intimacy or secrecy was lost.

One character, Father Francis, was unintelligible, due to his inability to sign. Not his fault - not every person is able to acquire fluidity in sign language over the course of a lifetime, much less a matter of months. Ostensibly, the actor’s value was in his singing voice (for a Deaf actor, that is).

Are these moments of weakness in the name of equal access a bad thing? Not neccessarily. For example, it is these plays, and only these plays, that I can attend with my hearing family and have an almost-equal theater experience.

But like August Wilson says, “Theatre is part art history in terms of its craft and dramaturgy, but it is part of social history in terms of how it is financed and governed.”

While I don’t wish to assert that Deaf theatre abandon all attempts at creating an experience that can be enjoyed by all, I do wish to see more productions that are recognitions of ourselves and our roles in society. One place to start, I think, is to investigate how our Deaf artists can create a truly Deaf experience, one that does not have to make concessions for the hearing person.

Well, lo and behold, I find out that Ethan Sinnott’s directorial debut, his adaptation of Tennessee William’s “Streetcar Named Desire” is not voiced. It’s open-captioned.

Sinnott's Streetcar Named Desire

Now, not only can hearing audiences (and deaf audiences not proficient in ASL) participate, the deaf actors can truly project. A deaf actor can monologue without paying attention to a hearing actor’s voice timing (or vice versa). Actors will have been chosen for their ability, not their voice. In this production, which opened on Thursday night to a sold-out audience, concern about a hearing person’s theatre experience is replaced by concern for a production that doesn’t compromise the Deaf thespian’s craft.

Sinnott’s director’s note reads, in part:

In adapting A Streetcar Named Desire, I addressed the aural symbolic undercurrents in the play set in the context of a hearing world and accessible only to hearing audiences. What this means is that Deaf audiences who have seen previous Deaf adaptations of the same play saw diluted, watered-down versions. Instead of the multidimensional experience, they were served straightforward, linear interpretations with the technical trappings of standardized Deaf theatre, such as, for example, the use of full-frontal light washes to illuminate Deaf actors all but killing the nuanced sensuality Tennessee Williams sought to capture.

I truly hope this vein of adaptation (or dramaturgy when Deaf-written plays are produced) is a trend-setter.

Wilson also said, “To mount an all-black production of Death of a Saleman or any other play conceived for white actors as an investigation of the human condition through the specifics of white culture is to deny us our own humanity, our own history, and the need to make our own investigations from the cultural ground on which we stand as black Americans.”

Simply change out “white” for hearing, and “black” for deaf, and hopefully you see why I think about our so-called Deaf theatre the way I do.

(Picture courtesy of Ethan Sinnott)

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