People Power: Madedra

PEOPLE POWER: Drama tutor Rolando Olmedo, puppet Scruffy and clown Lindsay Jones were in Wellington this week to publicise People which plays at the National Library next Saturday.

Madedra, the Manawatu Deaf Drama Group, is putting on the show. Jones returned from England last year after working for a deaf drama group there. Fifteen Palmerston North-based deaf people, with help from Olmedo, started improvising their own brand of theatre and Madedra was born.

The group has dwindled to six but the standard of performance is now close to professional, Olmedo says. Recently, People played to packed houses in Palmerston North and to an 800-person deaf conference in Auckland.

They have also been invited to perform in the International Festival of Deaf Theatre in Spain this year but still need to raise enough money.

Jones said hearing people often complained about deaf people being inattentive and unresponsive. People was their way of saying, “We can talk, but in a different way.”