On the Theatricality of Sign Languages on Stage

Abstract

In Aotearoa New Zealand, Equal Voices Arts are working with Deaf and hearing performers, devising work that is performed in both New Zealand Sign Language (NZSL) and spoken English, accessible for Deaf and hearing audiences. Focusing on their latest production to tour internationally, ‘Salonica’, and highlighting the work of the late Deaf actor Shaun Fahey, this article will explore how Fahey’s explorations of Visual Vernacular (VV) and theatricalised NZSL on stage are inherently theatrical in nature. Written collaboratively by Equal Voices Arts artistic director, Laura Haughey (hearing), and Deaf Sign Theatre specialist Denise Armstrong, the article will illuminate the differences between signed and spoken languages on stage, and the consequent theatrical possibilities that emerge from creating a site of cross-cultural and cross-linguistic exchange for Deaf and hearing audiences.

Notes

1 This article is co-authored but when direct quotes from Denise are inserted, they are identified in italics and by initials in parentheses, for example (DA). These sentences started life in BSL, and were translated for the page by both authors.

2 The capitalization of D in ‘Deaf’ indicates a culture and a linguistic minority. A small d represents those who identify as having a hearing impairment, but who don’t identify as being culturally Deaf.

3 For an academic review of At The End Of My Hands, please see Moody (2016). For other reviews of this production, please see Equal Voices Arts (2016).

4 This is an idea inspired by working with Common Ground Sign Dance Theatre, a company who didn’t use ‘sign interpretation’, and didn’t allow a dominant language to emerge. Placing the languages equally on stage enabled what O’Reilly calls a ‘place in which a genuine meeting of cultures can take place’ (2001: 44).

5 For more information on Salonica, please see Equal Voices Arts (2017).

6 Haughey is a hearing sign language user (British Sign Language and NZSL).

7 Denise Armstrong works in British Sign Language (BSL). NZSL is from the same family of languages as BSL, but has its own specific linguistic and cultural differences that make it unique. Equal Voices Arts used a qualified Deaf NZSL tutor, Rachel Turner Fahey, to ensure the final language choices were based in NZSL, and in the hands of the first language users.

8 Sign language is not a universal language, as many mistakenly think.

9 Ed Waterstreet founded Deaf West Theatre in 1991.

10 For more discussion on Deaf culture, see Ladd (2003).

11 Equal Voices Arts worked with dramaturg and writer Bill Hopkinson on both productions to shape the devised material. Bill has more than ten years of experience working alongside Deaf performers in his work with Common Ground Sign Dance Theatre.

12 The authors would like to thank Kaite O’Reilly for mentorship and support throughout these productions.

13 Part of the director’s role on this production, working with dramaturg Bill Hopkinson, was assembling the director’s montage: editing the images and movement in each scene, and then overlaying the scenes together to produce a story that makes sense visually for both D/deaf and hearing audiences. Hopkinson, who offered the main idea behind Salonica, also wrote speeches for hearing actor Mihailo Lađevac.

14 These scenes were interspersed with hearing actor Mihailo Lađevac’s physical storytelling of his own journey leaving his character’s homeland of Serbia, to head to war.