Lary Bloom
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Friday, March 24, 2006
Seeing Every Word No More
After 37 years, it appears as if the National Theatre of the Deaf's survival is threatened. It is a victim of an array of difficulties, including a slash in federal funding. The Courant has weighed in with its predictable editorial lament -- about how the company has been a national and international treasure. (David Hays, its founder, likes to say that it's the only theater company that played on all seven continents -- though in Antarctica, it merely held a workshop.) The truth is, it has been some time since the NTD was the force that David made it (he retired many years ago to take up fulltime writing).I went to NTD productions whenever I could. I found the company to be dynamic and creative. Sure it was a showcase for the deaf -- in a typical season, the majority of actors had this handicap and only a few hearing actors had speaking parts (there was always a narrator -- the slogan was "You see and hear every word."). But more than that it was excellent theater. In Robert Nathan's One More Spring, for example, a Russian actor on a limited visa played a rich U.S. capitalist in such convincing fashion that it seemed that all international boundaries and political divisions were blurred. The NTD had its finger on universality. And because most of its actors were deaf, they had to be more expressive in other ways than the typical actor.
A real crowd pleaser was the Little Theatre of the Deaf, an arm of the company. It played for young audiences. And it specialized in improvisation. Never have I seen improvisation done so well or creatively as the the LTD. When the audience shouted out an idea, the company simply performed it -- without ever huddling up, the way all other improvisation companies do. It would appear that the LTD may be the surviving element of the NTD. That's at least a silver lining.
Posted by:Lary Bloom at 8:35 AM
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