THE VIRGINIAN-PILOT
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: Wednesday, February 8, 1995 TAG: 9502080048
SECTION: DAILY BREAK PAGE: E1 EDITION: FINAL
SOURCE: By DIANE TENNANT, STAFF WRITER
LENGTH: Long : 163 lines
Am I deaf? No, why?
James, Act I, Children of a Lesser God
THE MAN LOOKED amused; the woman's mouth hung open.
Patiently, Shannon Listol thrust the note toward him again. He took it, read it and consulted his companion. ``Where's the bookstore?''
The woman still looked incredulous, but the man took Listol's pen and wrote: ``I think on first floor.''
``So, are they not supposed to talk or can't they?'' asked an onlooker, watching 15-year-old Listol and her high school cohorts scribble notes and gesture with their hands.
But the onlooker, using only her sense of sight, missed the point. It wasn't about talking at all. It was about hearing. Or not hearing.
About being deaf in a hearing world, of living the roles the teens would be acting in First Colonial High School's production of ``Children of a Lesser God.'' About being those children themselves.
``I never realized,'' said Sara Nash, lead actress, ``how being deaf does not mean you simply cannot hear. It is a culture, just like being from another country.''
To the people the actors approached at Waterside one Sunday in January, it was indeed a different world, where gestures and facial expressions and scribbled notes replaced speech. Some smiled and used their own hands to reply. Others repulsed with palms out and averted faces.
``It's weird,'' said Carrie Ansell, 16, ``when people won't even try to understand you.''
Are you doing this because I'm not deaf? I used to pretend to be deaf, if that counts.
James, Act I.
When drama teacher Nancy Curtis decided to do ``Children of a Lesser God,'' she wanted her students to do more than act in a play. She wanted them to learn the frustrations and anger of being deaf in a hearing world, and she wanted them to learn to communicate with both. Last fall, when she was pondering it over a cup of coffee, she had no idea how well she would succeed.
``Sometimes the right ideas happen just by accident, and those are the best ones,'' she mused later.
A friend, Margaret Lamb, who teaches sign language, suggested a weekend getaway. Even better, Curtis decided, would be a weekend get-involved. She booked rooms at the Marriott, and Lamb engaged the services of Kathy Mutter, a teacher who is deaf herself.
``She's so excited that there's a group of high school kids willing to come over to her world,'' Curtis said. ``Because most hearing people don't make that effort.''
The students studied sign language for about six weeks. Then they went to Waterside, popped wax plugs into their ears and took a vow of silence. And plunged into the crowd.
I can't help but detect a certain aversion to me.
James, Act I
Brent Runyon, 18, approached an elderly woman to ask directions to the music store. ``Write it down, write it down,'' she said, impatient with his gestures. So he did, and tried to write a second question. She slapped the paper away, saying, ``No more.''
Nash went up to an elderly man and asked where she could get a hamburger. He angrily repulsed her.
``He had no patience with us,'' Nash recounted to Mutter.
``How do you feel right now?'' Mutter asked, in the thick, nasal voice common to most hearing-impaired persons. ``Do you feel hurt?''
``Yeah,'' Nash said. ``A little brushed off, pushed aside. Like you're not as important because you can't communicate the way you're used to.''
Mutter smiled. Lesson learned.
I feel split down the middle, caught between two worlds. Deaf world here, hearing world here. . . . I hope I'm strong enough to juggle both.
Sarah, Act I
Megan Marshall knows the struggle well. She was born deaf, to parents who wanted her to meet the hearing world on its own terms. When she heard that First Colonial was doing ``Children of a Lesser God,'' she went to Curtis and begged to help teach those with speaking roles what deaf speech sounds like.
``Being raised in a hearing world has given me many challenges,'' Marshall explained. ``I was born deaf but never learned a lot of sign language. My parents wanted me to hear in the hearing world and learn to speak. I wear a hearing aid in my left ear, and I am now learning how to sign.''
At Waterside, Marshall and Listol approached a young man sitting at a table. Using only gestures, they tried to ask where they could buy a hamburger.
He tried hard to understand, then shook his head and put his hands over his face in embarrassment. They laughed together.
Marshall ``wrote'' with her finger on the table. Listol mimed eating a burger. A man eating with his son at the next table watched silently, skeptically.
Finally, comprehension dawned on the young man. But he didn't know the answer. So he led the girls through the food court, asking vendors along the way whether they sold hamburgers.
Mutter was pleased. Speaking in American Sign Language, with Lamb as translator, she said, ``Deaf world, it's more of a silent world. Everything shut. Limited. Off limits. Many times deaf people break through this. You can do better to help them (hearing people) understand they can come over to that side, to break through the barriers.''
Mutter has broken some barriers herself, by graduating from Old Dominion University. It was a struggle though, she said, to enlist ODU's aid in finding certified interpreters so she could understand the lectures.
She recalls a childhood of taunts from playmates who laughed at the hearing aid box hanging around her neck. ``They said I looked mentally retarded,'' Mutter recalled, with Lamb translating. ``Nobody wanted to play with me.''
The first thing I was ever able to understand was that everyone was supposed to hear but I couldn't and that was bad. . . . Well, my brain understands a lot; and my eyes are my ears; and my hands are my voice; and my language, my speech, my ability to communicate is as great as yours.
Sarah, Act II
The First Colonial students are more sympathetic. They learned the deaf alphabet, which is signed with the fingers, and they learned American Sign Language. Nash was particularly adept, Lamb said.
Whereas English Sign Language is an exact word-for-word translation of speech, American Sign Language is less literal, conveying images and meaning. A passage from the play, in ASL, then in English, demonstrates the difference:
``? You-two share? `y' sweet romance last Doubt Deaf rights beat!''
In English, it translates as, ``Does he share with you? Do you think this little romance will last half as long as what we can accomplish for our people?''
On stage, Nash's lines are delivered in ASL, through gestures and movements of her face and body. ``If you look at people signing, it's really beautiful,'' she explained.
``Physical poetry,'' agreed David Garvie, who plays the male lead, James, in the play.
Nash would like to continue studying signing and become a certified interpreter. Her colleagues acknowledge her expertise.
At the Marriott, she and Carrie Ansell, whose sister is deaf, stayed up until 2 a.m. talking in ASL.
``The rest of us had broken our silence,'' recalled Monica Brinn, 17, the student director. ``I came back in the room and the light was on so they could speak. I could hear little noises. I could hear their hands moving. I was very impressed that they could talk like that.''
The students were less impressed with their reception at Waterside. While some people were helpful and friendly, resorting to gestures of their own, others just didn't get it. A waitress, while acknowledging their ``deafness,'' kept telling them the prices with her voice. One of the students finally turned the computer monitor so they could read the check total.
A security guard wrote down a phone number for Runyon to call when he complained of losing money in a photo machine.
``The most important thing we learned was what a deaf person in the hearing world has to deal with,'' Garvie said. ``How sometimes angry, how sometimes scared, how sometimes frightened they are of us.''
The students are so much into their roles that they hope to form a club at school to teach other students sign language and deaf culture.
Runyon encountered a deaf man at a gasoline station recently. The man was shocked when Runyon struck up a conversation in sign language. ``It was an incredible experience,'' Runyon said. ``We were communicating in a real world situation. That wouldn't have been possible without these new skills I've learned from being in this play.'' ILLUSTRATION: Color photos
TAMARA VONINSKI/Staff
TOP: From left, Carrie Ansell, David Garvie and Sara Nash rehearse
for ``Children of a Lesser God.'' BOTTOM: Ansell, left, and Nash
practice using sign language in the Marriott before their
``experiment'' at Waterside.
by CNB