‘Children of a Lesser God’ @ Sweet Apple Productions
—Jan Farrington
It would have been enough by itself—the opportunity to see Mark Medoff’s ground-breaking Children of a Lesser God, winner of the 1980 Tony Award for Best Play. But from the minute I walked into the lobby of Stage West (its main theater space on loan for this visiting show from Sweet Apple Productions) there was so much more going on: hugs, greetings, animated faces—and the flashing hand movements of American Sign Language.
The audience on opening night was a blend of hearing, hard of hearing, and deaf theatregoers—and so were most of the actors onstage. This was an event—though it could be argued that by now (more than 40 years after the play’s premiere) it should have become more “usual.”
The story is told through both “silence and sound,” as one character says, through spoken dialogue and sign language, much of it translated by the characters themselves or the two skilled interpreters on the stage. And throughout the play, short segments of of sign-language or spoken-word dialogue are not translated for the “other” part of the audience: an intentional decision, directors Jennifer Bangs and Jorilyn Tasker told us, to give everyone in the theater the experience of being shut out, unable to access the thoughts being communicated.
Medoff’s story follows the relationship between James (Ryan Brown), an eager, idealistic (he’s just out of the Peace Corps) new speech instructor at a “school for the deaf,” and Sarah (Rebekah Covington), a spiky, self-isolating young woman who works there—a former student deeply traumatized by her past encounters with the “hearing” world. James is sure that lip reading and speaking are the tools his students need. Sarah rejects that. She doesn’t “aspire” to join James’ world, and she’s whip-smart enough to make her case forcefully.
James is enchanted.
Brown and Covington make a compelling pair as they spar (and spark), and they’re surrounded by other memorable characters. There’s Orin (Daymond Sands), a student activist always a hot minute away from a revolutionary rant on deaf rights. Sands is dramatic, funny and just a bit scary—but we believe he’ll make things happen. (Orin seeks help from lawyer Edna Klein, played by Stacy Okafor, who’s so sure—after one short meeting—that she completely “gets” the deaf community.)
Lydia (Margaret Teague) is the school’s femme fatale and Sarah’s nemesis, a hair-flipping flirt with her sights set on James. Mr. Franklin (Arthur Morton) is the worn, snarky head of the school (who doesn’t think the James-and-Sarah thing has a future). And as Sarah’s mother Mrs. Norman, Nancy Worcester’s uncaring embarrassment about her “different” daughter has us writing her off as hopeless…but maybe not.
Directors Bangs and Tasker keep up a high level of energy onstage, and words are the fuel—for James and Sarah’s sharp-edged banter, their desire, their bitter fights; for Orin’s latest strike-a-pose declaration; for Lydia’s sexy salvos, meant to get Sarah’s goat, and James’ attention. All the play’s spaces (apartment, school, Mom’s house, etc.) exist simultaneously onstage (actors sprint from one to another at times), and effective lighting focuses our view (Miranda Hildner on sets, Holli Price on lighting.)
Children of a Lesser God comes to life for us in the details, in the painful (but sometimes hilarious) specifics of James and Sarah’s special circumstances. She throws things—that’s a form of communication, right? They try to let one another inside the layers and barriers. They share wounds and losses. They try to find out what the other one hopes for from life, and from the future.
Their struggle reminds us what a miracle it is that any two humans ever come to know and understand each other. How separate we are, how guarded and defensive. And there are no magic keys and doors; only hard work, courage, and caring enough.
The audience stood to applaud—some with clapped hands, others with hands shimmering in a silent salute. The best theater brings us together, helps us see, gives us what one social analyst (writing about what we lost during the pandemic) calls an experience of “collective effervescence.” Together, we fizz and bubble. We are not alone. It’s different from watching a screen at home.
On this night, we turned toward strangers who had become smiling, teary-eyed companions in this experience. And left knowing a bit more about the world than we did coming in.
WHEN: February 22-25, 2024
WHERE: Stage West (Russell Theatre), 821 W. Vickery, Fort Worth
WEB: sweetappleproductions.com
