Broadway Has a New Language

By Gerald Clarke

The deaf are no longer a silent minority

Read these words aloud and imagine that there is no one in the state of Texas who could ever hear them without difficulty. That will give some idea of the number of Americans who are deaf or hard of hearing. There are approximately 14 million such people in the U.S., and until very recently they have been the true silent minority, unheard as well as unhearing.

Now all that is changing. In March PBS, NBC and ABC began captioning some of their programs, sending out signals that can be converted into subtitles on specially adapted sets. PBS's Masterpiece Theater is captioned, and so are such shows as ABC's Vega$ and NBC's Real People. Some advertisers, who realize what a vast market they have been missing, are even captioning their commercials.

One deaf performer, Sesame Street's Linda Bove, was so popular with the show's preschool audience that she became a regular member of the cast, playing the part of a deaf actress and spawning entire playgrounds of tots weaving tiny finger patterns in the air. At least one major theater, Los Angeles' Mark Taper Forum, reserves two performances of every production for the deaf, with a translator using sign language at the side of the stage to tell what the actors are saying. A major breakthrough came last month when Children of a Lesser God, a play about the romance of a deaf woman and a hearing man, virtually swept the Tonys, Broadway's equivalent of the Oscars. The most surprising award was to Phyllis Frelich, 36, the first deaf person ever to have a lead role on Broadway. She won over such established stars as Maggie Smith and Blythe Danner.

The story was inspired by Frelich's own. Playwright Mark Medoff (When You Comin' Back, Red Ryder?) was fascinated by the interplay between Frelich, already an accomplished actress with the National Theater of the Deaf, and her hearing husband, Robert Steinberg, 39, a stage manager and lighting designer. Medoff, who is head of the drama department of New Mexico State University, promised to write her a play. When he finished it, he invited the couple to New Mexico in January 1979 to rehearse it. Says Medoff: "I picked their brains for months in an effort to find out more about what happens when a deaf person and a hearing one fall in love and try to build a life together."

Frelich has none of the anger and bitterness of Sarah, the character she plays, but she does share Sarah's pride and her belief that the world of silence is as rich and worthwhile as the world of sound. Frelich also has Sarah's dependence on her hearing husband, who translates conversation to her through sign language. Medoff learned about a few of the smaller adjustments in such a unique partner ship. Steinberg, for instance, initially was uneasy listening to music that his wife could not enjoy; his guilt is transferred to Sarah's stage husband, James, who has pangs of remorse when he listens to Bach.

Having grown up in a world of silence, Frelich actually feels no envy for those who can hear. Her parents were deaf, and genetics made her and her eight brothers and sisters deaf as well. None of them found not being able to hear a great handicap, and she has little patience for do-gooders. "Most people I would meet were extremely patronizing," she says, signing rapidly to her husband, who puts her words into speech for TIME'S Elaine Dutka. "'Look at this wonderful deaf person,' they'd think, and want to use me in some way. Mark Medoff, though, seemed very sincere."

In New Mexico State University's production of Children, Steinberg, the only one around who knew how to sign, played the part of James. But when Gordon Davidson took the play to the Mark Taper Forum, John Rubinstein, 33, a more experienced actor, took on the role.

His father, Piano Virtuoso Arthur Rubinstein, had trained him as a musician, and he turned out to have a natural tal ent for the language of hand and rin gers. It took him only three weeks to learn to sign the role fluently. "I fell in love with the whole concept of sign," he says, "communicating physically and poetically." What makes the role so difficult is that he must speak for two.

Says he: "This is definitely the longest role ever written. For 2% hours each evening I talk nonstop, with no time to swallow, burp or clear my throat. Not even Hamlet or Lear talks that long."

The play underwent some major revisions. In Los Angeles, Sarah was so proud and isolated that it seemed unlikely that anyone like James would ever love her. In New York she is still proud, but Frelich allows her own radiance to shine through, making Sarah infinitely more attractive. The producers were nervous about how audiences would react to a play in which one of the two leading characters never speaks a word, but their fears obviously were groundless. Children is doing so well that a road company is al ready being planned to set out across the country in November.

Many people still find it difficult to believe that anyone who acts as well as Frelich is really deaf, and backstage visitors are often surprised and stunned to discover that she cannot hear them. "The play will undoubtedly help bridge the gap in the understanding of hearing people," she says, "but there is still a long way to go." And where will Frelich herself go? "Jobs for deaf actresses aren't plentiful," she admits, "but who knows what can happen in the future? I have a lot more dreams."

--By Gerald Clarke

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