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Last night I finally saw the Tony Award Winning show Spring Awakening. I'd been listening to the original Broadway Cast album since roughly 2010 or thereabouts. But I didn't see the original production, instead I saw the critically acclaimed Deaf West's Revival of Spring Awakening, which was put on in LA and brought to Broadway for 18 weeks this year. It ends January 19.
What is Deaf West?
From the Playbill: Deaf West is an organization dedicated to bridging cultures and shifting perceptions, specifically in regards to the hearing impaired. Deaf West employs American Sign Language (ASL) Masters, who facilitate the adaptation and translation process from written English to American Sign Language. This process requires careful attention to preserving the integrity of ASL, while adhering to the script as written. In addition to executing the translation, the ASL Masters must see that it appropriately reflects the actor and the character portrayed. The ASL Masters then work with each actor to ensure that the playwright's intentions, tone, rhythm, poetry, idiomatic expressions and humor are all reflected in each actor's signing.
They did previously with The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn, but in many ways, Spring Awakening lends itself far more to a Deaf theater adaptation, and having seen various videos of the previous version -- I tend to agree with various critics, surprise, surprise, that in some respects it's been improved. The sign language emphasizes the central theme of miscommunication or inability to communicate in the same language between parent and adolescent, or even between adolescents. It takes away some of the melodrama or "Broadway Burst into Song" and pulls it down to a more human and far more emotional level. There a moments of dead silence, where characters are speaking completely in sign language, with the words written slowly across the back drop in chalk white letters, that speak louder than actual words would.
Here's what the Director states about this presentation in Playbill:
For a while now, I've been interested in the inaccessibility of art, how to communicate it to others,
and the gaps in understanding. It does not seem to matter sometimes if we all speak the same language, when we can't seem to listen, see and/or hear what is being said. Spring Awakening encompasses that better than anything I've seen in a while - showing the struggle to express love, desire, hope...to largely death or uncomprehending ears.
It blew me away. My jaw was extended through most of the performance. I found it mind-blowing. I'd never seen anything quite like it. It's one of those performances that has to be seen live, you can't make film of it or a video and capture the experience of seeing it live.
Below the cut are a few samples of Deaf West's Revival of Spring Awakening:
( Read more... )
Now for comparison - a few clips from the Tony Award Winning Original Presentation of Spring Awakening:
( Read more... )
It's going on tour after it leaves Broadway.
What is Deaf West?
From the Playbill: Deaf West is an organization dedicated to bridging cultures and shifting perceptions, specifically in regards to the hearing impaired. Deaf West employs American Sign Language (ASL) Masters, who facilitate the adaptation and translation process from written English to American Sign Language. This process requires careful attention to preserving the integrity of ASL, while adhering to the script as written. In addition to executing the translation, the ASL Masters must see that it appropriately reflects the actor and the character portrayed. The ASL Masters then work with each actor to ensure that the playwright's intentions, tone, rhythm, poetry, idiomatic expressions and humor are all reflected in each actor's signing.
They did previously with The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn, but in many ways, Spring Awakening lends itself far more to a Deaf theater adaptation, and having seen various videos of the previous version -- I tend to agree with various critics, surprise, surprise, that in some respects it's been improved. The sign language emphasizes the central theme of miscommunication or inability to communicate in the same language between parent and adolescent, or even between adolescents. It takes away some of the melodrama or "Broadway Burst into Song" and pulls it down to a more human and far more emotional level. There a moments of dead silence, where characters are speaking completely in sign language, with the words written slowly across the back drop in chalk white letters, that speak louder than actual words would.
Here's what the Director states about this presentation in Playbill:
In 1891, Frank Wedekind's highly controversial and socially indicting play, Fruhlings Erwachen (Spring's Awakening) was published in Germany and subsequently banned. Eleven years prior, the Second International Congress on Education of the Deaf (known as the Milan Conference) passed a resolution banning sign language in schools across Europe and the United States, declaring Oralism (lip reading, speech and mimicking mouth shapes) superior. The term given to Deaf students unable to succeed with the abusive oral method was "Failure", the same word that sends (the character) young Moritz Stiefel down his destructive path. (Stiefel fails a language course and can't be promoted.) Children were told that if they failed at speech, they failed at life. Deaf marriage was looked down upon, and the barbaric sterilization of the Deaf was commonplace. This exploration of adolescence within the context of this dark time in Deaf history serves as a haunting reminder of the perils of miseducation and miscommunication.
Though much has changed since the time of Wedekind and the Milan Conference, we still live in a world where beliefs, cultures and individuals are silenced and marginalized.
For a while now, I've been interested in the inaccessibility of art, how to communicate it to others,
and the gaps in understanding. It does not seem to matter sometimes if we all speak the same language, when we can't seem to listen, see and/or hear what is being said. Spring Awakening encompasses that better than anything I've seen in a while - showing the struggle to express love, desire, hope...to largely death or uncomprehending ears.
It blew me away. My jaw was extended through most of the performance. I found it mind-blowing. I'd never seen anything quite like it. It's one of those performances that has to be seen live, you can't make film of it or a video and capture the experience of seeing it live.
Below the cut are a few samples of Deaf West's Revival of Spring Awakening:
( Read more... )
Now for comparison - a few clips from the Tony Award Winning Original Presentation of Spring Awakening:
( Read more... )
It's going on tour after it leaves Broadway.