Transcript
My name is Ethan Sinnott, from the Gallaudet University Theater Department where I work as a second-year faculty. I also work as a professional theater set designer. My review focuses on the DVD of Shakespeare’s play, “Twelfth Night,” released from Gallaudet University Press. This is a documentation of the play. The DVD includes a captions feature that can be turned on and off. The acting is about love and the different kinds of love and is set in Illyria. A pair of twins is separated by a shipwreck and they each arrive in different locations, where a series of events occur. People fall in love with others who don’t love them back, people fall in love with themselves, and all other sorts of love occurs in this story. This story is full of twists and is a romantic comedy with some characters heckling each other. This DVD places a strong value on education while focusing less on the theatrical aspect. The educational aspect of this DVD can be used in the classroom to help deaf students study and understand Shakespeare, alternating between ASL and Shakespeare’s language. This is incredibly valuable in that sense. One strong aspect of this play’s production is the ASL translation; a lot of research was put into this part, not only for individual characters but also for Shakespeare’s era altogether. There are many different ambiguous references, allusions, and vernacular within Shakespeare’s time in England during the 1500s and 1600s. The understanding of these aspects is then shown through the translations during the production. The audience can clearly see the meaning of the lines in the play, but that’s about it. The play’s pace is mediocre; the pace isn’t slow, but there were no risks taken with the acting, design, or overall presentation. It’s safe and straight-up Shakespeare rather than taking Shakespeare’s play and interpreting into a different form of art. This is Shakespeare straight-up as intended during his time and the deaf actors are wandering around the stage signing the lines, along with plenty of gaps throughout the production. Shakespeare’s work was not translated into the deaf world, but rather the deaf actors were acting as Shakespeare intended. For example, Viola and Duke Orsino are clearly hearing characters based on the actors’ presentation. The actors rehearsed the lines incessantly, translating them into signs and once they were on stage, the signing appeared awkward and unnatural. This bothers me because with a deaf cast, my expectation when it comes to translating Shakespeare’s lines into ASL is that the actors should also experiment in the sense of that language for the best translation. My feeling is that all deaf actors should do this. While watching these actors, it was awkward, and the signing appeared uncomfortable. It’s possible to understand the meaning, but I couldn’t connect with the play. The shining aspects of the play were deaf actors Dennis Webster, Peter Cook, and Adrian Blue. These actors are incredibly skilled and when they came together in their characters of Sir Toby Belch, Feste the jester, and Malvolio, servant to Lady Olivia, who is acted by Jackie Roth who graduated from Gallaudet in the 1970s. These three actors came together, and they were dynamic, bringing up the energy of an otherwise lackluster play. They brought sparks to the play, creating wonderful translations of the play. I watched in awe, one of the few times in my life where I could sit back and enjoy the show. The balance of that translation with the energy of the comedic moments made it enjoyable, truly professional and top-notch. These actors honestly carried the entire play. This is sad because in my opinion, Dennis Webster is easily the best deaf comedian in the entire world, and he has not received the recognition he deserved throughout the years. The production of this DVD makes me happy because this documentation allows us to see and appreciate his talent, which doesn’t occur often. In summary, this DVD has a better value in the classroom as a strong educational support tool, even though I wish the menu would provide more options other than captions and scene selections. The scene selection feature is also limited by Acts only. I wish numerous other features were added, such as the history of Shakespeare, the process of documenting and translating his plays, experimenting with various out takes, and so on. This DVD doesn’t have this myriad of options but instead only contains the website address www.ASLShakespeare.org. It’d be fine to watch the DVD and click on this website, but there are still some areas in this country with no access to the Internet. It’d be more practical to have additional assistive teaching tools in these extra features to maximize learning in the classroom. The educational aspect of this DVD is strong while the theatrical value is weak.