Zoe McWhinney: Review of the touring play Summit (on in Saltburn tomorrow and Redcar on Friday)

Summit is on until 16th November, in Stokesley tonight, Saltburn by the Sea tomorrow and Redcar on Friday. See dates and locations here in the left hand column.

To watch Zoe signing her article, click play below, or scroll down for written English.

Andy Smith’s SUMMIT play, co-directed with Claire Lamont (who is also the head of the BA performance in BSL and English course at The Royal Conservatoire of Scotland) is very simple and minimal.

The choreography tends to lean on the wealth of visuality that BSL offers as a language, shared out to the two hearing actors, Aleasha Chaunte and Nadia Anim like little tokens of language from the Deaf actor Jamie Rea; alongside English and Malay that is also spoken in this production.

If you are hoping for some kind of physical spectacle or circus, you wouldn’t find it here. Instead, you are given glimpses of a possible future where we all will be a part of.

There is no “role-playing” or characters; the three actors come as they are, messengers of the liberal, socialist message.

You will be directly invited by them to delve into your imagination, to take a moment and listen to their simple, plain messages, plea and narrative “of a meeting to discuss crisis”, and to think profoundly in the silent pauses.

It has a political undercurrent, a heavy (given the urgent circumstances today with global issues), and liberal one at that. But it also empowers with much-needed optimism and hope.

For me, it provokes thoughts about the trust we put in leadership and the power of the collective to effect change. It triggers conversations afterwards.

With a Deaf person physically put front and centre of the stage for most of it, with the two hearing actors sometimes signing as they spoke, I did wonder if the hearing theatre makers are mining BSL… But any anxiety of this being some kind of appropriating of BSL was soon put at ease (or blew away, more like) by Jamie Rea’s powerfully articulate signs (with a mix of Scottish-Northern Irish accent to his signing) and his bold, charming personality.

He has expressions with such force and so earnest that they sear through the audience whenever he makes eye contact with them. It was wonderful to witness a Deaf person like that on stage.

The three languages overlap, but English and BSL are the dominant languages spoken throughout, bearing the brunt of Smith’s messages and helping each other to make SUMMIT more accessible and enjoyable to watch.

* It’s worth noting that that Rea’s sign for the word “start” is Northern Irish (which is same/ similar to ASL’s) not Scottish – I did get confused because in the context of the play, they were also saying “lights out” so at times I was left wondering if it’s “start” or “lights out”!

See left column for the remaining dates and locations up to November 16th: https://www.fueltheatre.com/projects/summit