The play Tribes, about a Deaf boy who is left out in his hearing family, gained rave reviews a few years ago when it was performed at the Royal Court in London, going on to be performed around the world (read our Editor Charlie Swinbourne’s Guardian article about it here).
Central to the play is the Deaf character of Billy, who was memorably played by British Deaf actor Jacob Casselden (seen in the photo above in the performance in that first production. When the play has been performed around the world, the actor cast to play Billy has always been Deaf.
But now controversy has hit the play with the news that a performance of the play in Iowa, America, has been cast with hearing actors, with the artistic director of the theatre concerned saying “no deaf actors showed up to the auditions.”
It should be noted that the theatre is not a commercial one, it is a community theatre that does not pay the actors for their performances. However, Howard Sherman, who is the interim director of America’s Alliance for Inclusion in the Arts has written a blog post arguing against the casting, which says:
“Unfortunately, no deaf actors showed up to the auditions.”
The statement above was made yesterday in a public statement to the Deaf and hard of hearing community by Leslie Charipar, artistic director of Theatre Cedar Rapids in Iowa. It was issued in response to complaints that Charipar has received from the Deaf community at large about the theatre’s upcoming production of Nina Raine’s Tribes, which TCR has cast with hearing actors in the roles of Billy, who is deaf, and Sylvia, a young woman raised by Deaf parents who is now going deaf. The statement is in response to what Charipar calls “questions, complaints, rants, and vitriol against our production.”
The statement about “showing up” is not a unique one, as it has been used by various theatres in a variety of circumstances, when they say they are unable to cast roles authentically for race, ethnicity and disability, but forge ahead with a show regardless.
It places the onus on people whose lived experience mirrors or approximates that of the role in question, blaming them for not “showing up” and, ostensibly, then absolves the producer for proceeding with casting solely from the pool of those who did, regardless of the specific requirements of the role.
Sherman also asks a series of questions of the theatre concerned, including about access to auditions.
With thanks to Lindsey Dryden for alerting us to this story via Facebook.
Hartmut
September 9, 2016
Tribes was performed in Boston with a Deaf actor and a real CODA If my memory serves correctly, the Deaf actor was the only one who got paid, since he was a professional actor, appaering on Boston stages several times.
The claim by the director in Iowa is dubious. He must have managed to find a Deaf ASL consultant to train the cast in sign language. Who could help translate the poems or lyrics into artistic ASL poetry? Any person with ASL competency and theatrical background would know how to obtain someone to audition for the Deaf role.
Hartmut
September 9, 2016
There was a German film who almost won an Oscar for Best Foreign Film “Beyond Silence”. The director Caroline Link first auditioned German Deaf actors who had performed on different German Deaf stages, and found them unsatisfactory. She then cast the French actress Emanuelle Laborit and US actor Howie Seago for the roles of Deaf parents. They needed to learn DGS (German Sign Language). German Deaf circles thereupon protested .They even asserted, their DGS showed strong foreign accents. But to me, they performed very well, even their DGS are good, better than the average Deafies in Germany.
Laura
September 9, 2016
Josh Castille – a great Deaf actor from Deaf West Theatre was recently playing Billy in Tribes in America.
iowatheatreblogeditor
September 10, 2016
One member of the Iowa theatre community is calling on TCR to postpone the show:
https://iowatheatre.wordpress.com/2016/09/09/an-opinion-the-tcr-tribes-controversy/