Stage

Deaf Poetry Jam

Appleseed mines the eloquent sounds of silence for Children of a Lesser God

Director Sharee Lemos remembers a 1980 New York City performance of Mark Medoff's Children of a Lesser God as one of her most ecstatic moments in theater. An upmarket hit at the time, Children went on to be a much-awarded film in 1986 with William Hurt and Marlee Matlin. But director Lemos knows that stage work as a considerably different show. Paradoxically for a story about deafness, she helps playwright Medoff recover his voice. This Appleseed Productions mounting, on the stage of the Lutheran Atonement Church, is a loving act of restoration.

Not that director Randa Haines' film is a piece of garbage, more that it clutters and obscures the central themes. The film has idealistic teacher James Leeds warming up the students with rock'n'roll. In the play he relaxes with Bach and Handel. In the movie deaf student Sarah Norman has been tooled back to age 21 to accommodate actress Matlin. Here she is 30 with arrested development, unwilling to take steps to move beyond menial tasks.

The movie's crowded mise-en-scene embraces a gaggle of competing students. On the stage play's spare set are only three students: Sarah, angry Orin and fawning Lydia. In the film the growing love between James and Sarah drives much of the plot. In the play the couple hit it off quickly and are soon enjoying a rewarding intimate life (we hear from offstage reports), yet there is also a deeper silence between the two that love and sex do not reach.

A much profounder difference between the film and stage versions is that no camera does any peeking for us. We see and hear everything through Leeds, played by community theater favorite Joe Pierce, who has shorn his mustache for the right characterization. Not only does he sound aloud Sarah's words, but he encompasses all the action in his dialogue. Pierce has learned signing for the role, but like Eliza Doolittle learning the King's English, he doesn't do it so well at the beginning. Pierce's sunny native persona brightens the tone of the proceedings. Easily given to smiles and high spirits, James always seems self-assured in emphasizing the positive, even as his dialogue speaks of regret. This tends to make James more sympathetic, even as he convinces himself he's on top of communication he does not fully master.

Newcomer Sarah Dadey carries a different burden. From the beginning she must be disaffected, sullen and needy, none of which is an alluring emotion. Her response to James' approach to her is understated and circumspect. He may have rescued her from a life of domestic tedium as a school maidservant, but she keeps struggling to convince him that she doesn't want to learn to lip-read or struggle with the distortions of deaf-speech. James' demands are mostly for his convenience, and Sarah is not exactly willful in resisting them. She can't get him to understand. Dadey, meanwhile, is an expert signer, sure to make her performance especially affecting to hearing-impaired audiences expected to attend.

The two other students frame Sarah's concerns. As Orin, Tom Ciancaglini tastefully evokes the near-cleft palate intonations of the deaf struggling to speak. Convinced that deaf people are victimized by the system, he fumes against perceived wrongs and campaigns for more rights. His threatened lawsuit to force the school to hire more deaf teachers feels quixotic, and Sarah's reluctance to join the efforts indicates her needs are deeper than economics and politics.

On the other side of the spectrum, lovely Natalie Galvin delivers a kittenish Lydia, who's infatuated with her male teacher. The writing of such characters is a fancy of male playwrights but is little known in the life of your average teacher, yet she serves a dramatic function here. Her presence underscores Sarah's depth and maturity: Lydia wants more than affection.

Three other characters all come off better than they do in the film, where they are caricatured. Pat Stone initially gives Sarah's mother a certain coolness, yet she's no monster mom; her capacity can reach only so far. Similarly, Blair Dawson's Edna Klein resists becoming a lawyer joke through a coy self-awareness. And Doug Walls' bridge-loving administrator, Mr. Franklin, is too bemused and ironic to become the ogre Orin's protests would like him to be.

Joe Pierce's spare sets and Jon Wilson's lighting well serve director Lemos' stripped-down concepts: a frame here, a few steps there, nothing to distract us from the craved-for communication. Indeed, Lemos' love for Children of a Lesser God wins the evening. Spoken words and human presence take us to where the celluloid images did not.

This production runs through Dec. 18. See Times Table for information.