All the world is a stage – for the deaf, too
“Speaking hands, hearing eyes” is the title of an Australian folk song about the deaf. It is also the dictum by which Anne Tweedie lives and why she has started a Theatre for the Deaf. Kay Forrester talks to the woman to whom speaking with her hands and listening with her eyes has become second nature.
Jeffrey is just six years old, the biggest smile you ever saw,
And there’s so much I know he wants to say,
But Jeffrey cannot speak to me language I can understand,
But oh the thought his fingers can convey,
So I’m learning to speak with my hands,
I’m learning how to hear with my eyes,
So that I can understand what he wants to say to me.
...
Then Anne Tweedie heard of an American psychologist and spent three days in Wellington learning from him how to speak with her hands.
She has not forgotten the expression on her daughter’s face when she first began “signing” to her. “It opened up a whole new world for Susan … and for me.”
It is that world Anne Tweedie wants to give to other young deaf people — and not so young — who are members of her theatre in the Arts Centre.
Visits to the Chester Theatre for the Deaf in Connecticut and the Royal National Institute for the Deaf in London last year showed what theatre programmes for deaf people could achieve.
A conversation with the Christchurch Arts Centre director, Chris Doig, turned up the theatre space in the Clocktower building and Christchurch’s Theatre for the Deaf was launched.
Teaching the deaf was not new to Mrs Tweedie. She has been taking sign lessons for the deaf and hearing for many years at her home, and is the president of the Sumner Society for Deaf Children. Now these lessons are part of the theatre programme.
The theatre began on January 6 and meets during the day on Tuesdays and Wednesday, and on Thursdays evenings. Sometimes there are two students, sometimes 15. They come when they can, Anne Tweedie says.
Susan is a member of the theatre; so is Anne Tweedie’s elder daughter, Christeen, who is the group’s musical director. The number of students has grown with the theatre. They are former pupils and people who heard about the theatre. Most are deaf. Anne Tweedie’s aim is a ratio of one to one of deaf to hearing.
“Hearing people have their tongues. Deaf people have their eyes, their hands and, perhaps, their heads and feet. We are the ones who need to communicate better,” she says.
The role of the hearing in the theatre is exactly that of the deaf members. “We are sharing in this. We are there to put on a show.” Members of the group at present number 10 hearing to eight deaf.
Helping deaf people to feel at ease with the hearing — Anne Tweedie says that most deaf people are fearful of the hearing — and fostering a feeling of two-way communication are the aims of the theatre. Its motto: “Listen with your eyes.”
That is Anne Tweedie’s first comment to those who ring wanting to help. “They have to want to help for the right reasons: We don’t want people who are trying to convert the deaf to anything. We don’t want people who need counselling. I’m not there as a counsellor but as a director.”
Her wariness of the hearing is the result of being lectured by people who believe they know about deafness and what is best for the deaf. She says the deaf very quickly sense insincerity, and the theatre group is no exception.
The success of the theatre hinges very much on her and the amount of time she is willing to put it. How long can she keep it up?
“Another 10 years. It is not something you start and then just put down when you get tired.”
She says people have warned her about doing too much, but the theatre is “the easiest thing she has done. I am enjoying it thoroughly.” She is delighted with the progress the theatre members are making.
A “trial run” public performance went very well and the actors loved it.
“They were reluctant at first but really enjoyed being on stage.”
The first real public performance is set for May 9, after a performance the day before for deaf students at Van Asch College. The group will also take part in the Secondary Schools Drama Festival on May 1. The programme for that performance is four short plays, mime, and signed singing.
The play scripts have come from overseas. The actors walk through the dialogue and talk through the scripts. They live with the scripts, ad libbing the dialogue.
The production will have full costuming and lighting. “Why not? It’s a theatre show.”
The songs will be signed to tapes for those in the audience who can hear the music. Anne Tweedie will act as a go-between directing the signers.
“To get things started I will be speaking — total communication. Most of the actors do not have intelligible speech. Those that were not born deaf do have speech. I speak because the audiences may not know sign language.” The performances are for deaf and hearing people.
The scripts are simple. “We are beginning slowly. It has to be careful so we do not scare people away. We have to hurry slowly.”
The actors are growing in confidence and Anne Tweedie hopes performing in front of the public will continue that trend. Her aim is to have regular public performances.
She says, perhaps a little bitterly, that New Zealand is years behind other countries in teaching and facilities for the deaf. Her family has learnt the hard way. She hopes the Theatre for the Deaf will make it easier in others.
Photo captions: (Bottom left) Anne Tweedie: speaking with her hands, listening with her eyes; (Top right) Christchurch’s Theatre for the Deaf is for the hearing as well as the deaf. Peter Goddard (left) is profoundly deaf, Dana McKay is not deaf. Both share a joke with Anne Tweedie while rehearsing a script.
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