The Importance Of Communication In Deaf Theatre

For this plan I was given the challenge of finding a way to help the actors remember the order of the play and their entrance and exits. I wanted to push the actors to use the space and not have to use language to communicate. The challenge here was to create a plan that would be sustaining and challenging but not restricting to the Deaf actors by taking their language away from them. The intention of the workshop was to slowly over stimulate the actors so that they would start to multitask. By doing this the exercises change from being simple tasks to “amulets, which the actor carries around, not to show them off but to draw from certain qualities of energy out of which a second nervous system slowly develops” (Barba, 2002, p. 100) My intention …show more content…
This was not only to get the actors used to the feel of the balls but also to even out the communication field. In this activity there was to be no talking or signing. As Britton says “the ‘real’ element of communication (the ball) is passed from one person to another” (p.330). I wish to take this communication and use it to break down the language barrier between the deaf and hearing actors. While talking about Stanislavski John Gillett (2007) discusses the importance of the ball game and passing energy. “[T]he essential nature of throwing and catching in this context is giving and receiving”. When we combine this with what Britton has said there is a communication that is being shared between two actors. As the ‘communication’ is the ball it can easily be passed to any actor without the barriers that often arise when working in multiple languages. Both Britton and Gillett agree that the key to making the ball game work is the reaction of the receiver. Britton calls it response while Gillett describes it as openness. In either instance it is about reacting to the energy that one is given and passing it on to the next person who needs