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SPRING AWAKENING at Deaf West - Brilliant production!

Posted by: bicoastal 11:26 am EDT 10/11/14

I did a search and it doesn't look like there have been postings about this remarkable production. Director Michael Arden has incorporated a stunning level of emotion and meaning into SPRING AWAKENING by embracing the Deaf West performance model and then elevating it by making several key characters deaf in the show (Moritz and his father). It's a smart idea and enriches the entire experience. (I've had limited experience with Deaf West and I don't recall that their PIPPIN did the same thing. Please correct if I am wrong.)

The music is less in-your-face than it was on Broadway and at times for me was more effective. The visual impact of the words via ASL and some projections is very powerful and the level of talent onstage is breathtaking. Without a doubt one of the best productions I've ever seen in Los Angeles. It is already sold out for the rest of its run and one can only hope it gets extended. It truly is remarkable.


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Deaf Characters?

Posted by: Kaoru 03:02 pm EDT 10/12/14
In reply to: SPRING AWAKENING at Deaf West - Brilliant production! - bicoastal 11:26 am EDT 10/11/14

I haven't seen or will see this show but Mortiz and his father are deaf characters in this production? So Mortiz is attending a hearing school as a deaf student? How he communicates with other students/teachers? Is the setting presented as they can sign to him? I've seen a few Deaf West productions and none of them had a deaf character (it's always deaf actors playing a character, and the voice was provided by a hearing actor), so it's hard to imagine how they set up the premise (is it explained in the program?)


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re: Deaf Characters?

Posted by: Pir8Jenny 04:12 pm EDT 10/14/14
In reply to: Deaf Characters? - Kaoru 03:02 pm EDT 10/12/14

It is presented very clearly in the play that Moritz is Deaf.

The program explains that, historically-speaking, at around the time this play takes place, there was a movement to educate Deaf children in "oral" classrooms, where sign language was forbidden. The play uses this. The classroom is an oral classroom. The teacher does not sign (the words he is speaking are projected on a wall, though, so the audience knows what he's saying). When he asks Moritz a question, Moritz attempts to sign, and the teacher won't have it and demands that Moritz speak.

He doesn't have trouble communicating with the other students. Melchior signs and speaks (and is the first to defend Moritz to the teacher). Other students also sign -- regardless of whether the actors are Deaf or hearing.

A good argument could be made that Wendla is also Deaf in this production. Her hearing mother does sign, but she's awkward communicating with her daughter. When the show's program talks about using this production to draw parallels to the difficulties Deaf children have communicating with hearing parents, I'm pretty sure they're talking about Wendla.


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re: SPRING AWAKENING at Deaf West - Brilliant production!

Posted by: Pir8Jenny 01:18 am EDT 10/12/14
In reply to: SPRING AWAKENING at Deaf West - Brilliant production! - bicoastal 11:26 am EDT 10/11/14

I reviewed it here (scroll down to about September 18).

As for whether Pippin had Deaf CHARACTERS -- hard to say. They were Deaf actors, surely, but in many previous Deaf West productions, there's little actual acknowledgement of whether any character in particular is Deaf or hearing, and the shows seem to take place in a world where everyone understands everyone else. (Indeed, one of my problems with the company's recent "Flowers for Algernon" was that I couldn't actually figure out whether Charly was Deaf or hearing.)

In retrospect, I think that was one of the things that was so stunning about the Deaf West "Cyrano" -- because I'd seen so many of their productions in which everyone DOES understand each other, and then they just jumped right on in with a Deaf Cyrano in a hearing world.


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