Joseph Ziegler and Nancy Palk in Tribes. Photo by David Hou.
Communicating your identity
Language and self at core of Tribes
by Dave Ross
Expression - how do you express yourself? What is your language? What is your community? Does your language define your community? Does your community define your language? These are some of the questions wracking my mind as I departed Tribes at the Berkeley Street Theatre last night.
Presented by Canadian Stage, Tribes is a collaborative theatre work with Theatrefront Production and Theatre Aquarius, directed by Daryl Cloran. This work is not delicate - the boundaries between community and language are probed, challenged, crossed - and relationships are damaged as a result. Playwright Nina Raine has managed to portray some difficult questions regarding identity and community for the hearing impaired, and express parts of the hearing impaired community that I expect many who can hear don’t know about. In this play, we journey with Billy (Stephen Drabicki) as he meets and develops a relationship with Sylvia (Holly Lewis). Billy was born deaf, and is an accomplished lip-reader, but does not know how to sign. Sylvia is going deaf, but can sign eloquently. These two hearing-impaired characters clash with Billy’s family - none of whom have ever learned to sign.
