Juliet England: My on-stage monologue about dating with a hearing loss

I know, I know. I’m an unrelenting self-publicist, and have written at length about my efforts on stage and about performing with a hearing loss.

But indulge me one more time on this. The other Friday night, I did something of a solo effort, a monologue, or a moaner-logue, if you will, based on not being able to hear properly.

It was part of a fundraising variety event at my local community theatre – home to the same company which put on Much Ado about Nothing (in which I had a small role) in the summer.

We’re also currently rehearsing Liz Lochhead’s Blood and Ice here, in which I again have an equally small part as The Creature, a prospect which is terrifying for all the wrong reasons.

Anyway, getting to the point of performing my monologue on the night was in itself a challenge. Minutes before the doors opened, I stood blinking into the harsh lights on stage, unable to hear what the guys up in the lighting and sound box were trying to tell me. (Thankfully, the organiser was on hand to translate.)

I was keen to convey the sound of a screeching hearing aid. My diva-like demands meant that I wanted this sound woven into part of the dialogue. Unfortunately, it meant I couldn’t hear when that sound was being played, or indeed when it stopped.

I also wanted to convey what it’s like when you hear scraps of information, none of which seem to make any sense. So another of my diva-ish demands was to incorporate snatches of the songs Reet Petite and Tutti Frutti into my dialogue, along with meaningless, random expressions like jam tarts, hard border and ear wax.

This was far harder than I had realised, in my naiveté, it would be.

Again, I struggled to hear the music and my original idea to have just a few bars, Lookabell, lookabell, say, or A whop bop-a-lu a whop bam boo, didn’t quite work.

As I rehearse into the ether, with no one around, I begin to get very worried. Do I really want to do this, and, more importantly, does anyone want to hear it?

It was always going to be a warmly receptive audience, an evening among friends. But the silence with which my rehearsal is greeted makes me wonder if I am about to lose the final precious remnants of my dignity.

And yet, somehow, the horror of backing out now, at the very last minute, seems far worse.

I’ve been given a kindly billing, number three on the line-up – a couple of acts in so people would be warmed up, but not so far down the bill of fare that people are beginning to get fidgety.

Up before me are a couple of pole dancers. Young and entertaining, they seem to be everything I’m not. I can honestly say I’ve never shared a dressing room with a pair of pole dancers before, but more power to ‘em.

Anyway, armed with a small bistro table, a wine glass and a bottle of very old white, I shuffle on to the stage. (You say props, I say essential crutch.)

And so I launch into my script, which thankfully I am allowed to read instead of having to learn it. It’s quite a lot about dating without being able to hear, so I mention the perils of low-lit restaurants and the like, of smiling and nodding and saying ‘That’s lovely’ when your date is telling you about his twin sister who died when they were both 15.

I talk about a break-up meaning I am ‘back on the scene’.

I describe how easy it can be to focus on the food and wine and let your mind wander from your date. About the horrors of getting a lift home in a dark car with someone you don’t know very well. The inherent unsexiness of hearing aids.

I even stray a bit into TV subtitling (‘Amy Winehouse was a sinner’), and the complete impossibility of having anything like a meaningful conversation on the phone.

And them something very strange starts to happen. It’s not loud at first, more of a distant rumble. With my hearing aids turned up full blast, it dawns on me that people are actually laughing. Then I hear it again, more loudly this time. A few more sentences and the sound returns. It’s as though it’s snowballed.

I throw them a ‘shut up’ filthy look by way of a thank you, and the volume goes up. I ask them how they can live with themselves (‘Just look at your smug little faces’) if they don’t appreciate the full misery of dating with a hearing loss. They chortle some more.

Bewildered and blinking into the lights, I take my bow and practically collapse offstage, I’m so relieved I no longer have to worry about performing this. Nonetheless, I think I wouldn’t mind another crack at something similar on another occasion. Just not immediately.

Read more of Juliet’s articles for us here.

Juliet England is a hearing-impaired freelance writer.