SILENT WORDS by Ashley Wright (Theatre Crave). At Tarragon Extra Space (30 Bridgman). To April 25. $20. 416-531-1827. See Continuing. Rating: NNN
Silent Words is a unique theatrical experience. Deaf actor Chris Dodd simultaneously signs and speaks every word of this solo show based loosely on his own challenging childhood in a small prairie town.[rssbreak]
Writer/director Ashley Wright centres the story around Dodd’s harrowing boyhood battle with meningitis, which costs him his ability to hear and threatens his budding passion for the piano.
Presented simply as storytelling, Wright concentrates the action centre stage, but Dodd’s direct address to the audience and constant signing keep things dynamic and engaging.
However, the most powerful aspect of this show isn’t the medical drama or loss of hearing. It’s the Rosetta-stone quality of experiencing the same story through three different forms of communication all at once. While Dodd signs and speaks, excerpts from the text are also projected onto a screen behind him. The result is a play that highlights the power of language and lets the audience experience different forms of communication.
Sometimes Dodd’s pronunciation can be difficult to understand, but meaning is still conveyed either through the text or the mimetic and intuitive qualities of American Sign Language. Wright’s attention to repetition in the script capitalizes on this it doesn’t take long before Dodd’s signs make sense and are themselves enough to go on.
What makes this experience even more interesting is that the audience’s struggle to understand replicates and reverses the burdens of deriving and making meaning often encountered by deaf people in our verbally biased culture.
Although the show is 12 years old, and at times a little slow-moving, at its heart it’s a powerful and relevant meeting of inspiration, imagination and experimentation.
