Saturday was interesting. I actually pried myself away from Brooklyn and trained it over to Manhattan to see a play. When I sat down in the theater I realized everyone around me was throwing signs. Meaning, using American sign language as the source of communication. [This ain't no Crips and Bloods tale]. I was attending a matinee performance for the deaf and hard of hearing.
Long story, short: I was invited to see Stephen Adly Guirgis' The Little Flower of East Orange at the Public Theater. And in the play, the main character was the daughter of a deaf Irish immigrant living in East Orange, New Jersey. I didn't know this before I sat down. But I tell you, it's an amazing experience when you attend a play and the majority of its audience has a direct connection to the storyline or one of the characters. You're forced to pay closer attention to the specificity and the foreignness. And it was clear by the size and buzz of the audience, the deaf community has an anxious need to see themselves dramatized on stage. A real anxious need.
Half Egyptian, half Irish, Guirgis is a playwright known for his uncanny ability to capture the urban voice with mastery. Dominican, African-American, Irish, his language not only captures the subtleties in these people, but he holds no punches with how they interpret their social/racial worlds. Ask anyone—Guirgis' language always leaves you fired up and in awe. His stories? Some intriguing, some mundane [but I'm not complaining]. Each of his plays are certainly worth the price of the ticket.
The main attraction in this production [besides Phillip Seymour Hoffman directing] is Ellen Burstyn. In my opinion, Burstyn can do no wrong. From the Exorcist to Requiem for a Dream, she illuminates, probes and always leaves me completely blown away. In the Little Flower of East Orange she plays an aging mother with a secret and unrelenting request not to burden her already-guilt ridden children. But more interestingly, she's the daughter of a deaf immigrant whose only wish is for his hearing-daughter to grow up and teach the deaf. His alcoholism and violent outbursts, however, keep the daughter from fulfilling his wish. His tyrannical legacy even stretches into the lives of his grandchildren. There was a scene where the son tells Burstyn if he'd known the deaf grandfather he'd kill him for the way he brutalized her for being able to hear. Oh yeh. I was moved and glad to be a witness to this play.
But to be honest, I'm not sure if the impact I experienced would have been the same if the audience wasn't chockfull with the deaf and the hard of hearing. I would have enjoyed it, no doubt. But I'm not sure if it would have stuck. Unlike Broadway's Passing Strange where I glowed because it was the first time I experienced theater where I felt the story spoke directly to my own life [ethnicity and idealogy], this was the first time the characters and storylines were illuminated because it meant so much to everyone around me.
Saturday was strange indeed. The play was great. Ellen Burstyn's performance haunted a brother for hours. But to share the experience with the deaf humbled me. It reminded me that attending theater isn't just an activity for the culturally elite, or the starving artiste, it's where story is told and those who need the story desperately listen.
