Tribes

Photo credit: Michael Brosilow
Steppenwolf Theater

One word: yawn.

We left the theater and there was nothing to talk about. Ironic, really, since this play was all about communication.

Billy, deaf, has been raised by a family that wanted to have him live in the world as a hearing person. Exception at reading lips, he catches most of what is said - however, he definitely lives as something of an outsider in his family. He was discouraged from learning sign language and the family made no move toward learning it themselves through the years.

This is a coming of age story.

Enter the girlfriend who is losing her hearing, but has deaf parents and a deaf sister and has been a part of the deaf world for quite some time. She introduces Billy to this insular world and he feels like he finally belongs in a way he never has with his family.

At the same time, the girlfriend is growing slightly disillusioned or going through a time of pulling away from the deaf community, as she is losing her hearing, grieving that loss - she draws somewhat close to his hearing family.

At the same time, the brother has regained a stutter as he becomes unhinged.

At the same time, the sister comes to the self-realization that she will never be a great operatic performer, a singer of other languages.

At the same time, the father is learning Chinese, and still won't learn sign language.

At the same time, the mother has written a book.

Yawn again. It's knit too tight. There are no loose edges. Any regular theater goer is left with nothing to think about. In the first 10 minutes you know where this is going. Any surprise is less than worthwhile.

Leaving your family for a secondary "tribe" is just a stage of development, no matter what the circumstances. Eventually, you come back after you've found that it takes a few tribes to make you whole.

I will say, though, I may stand alone on my take on this one. Even though I found it to be a blah night at the theater, more people stayed for the discussion than usual and I thought they were actively engaged in it.

The set design was rather nice. The main point of it being that there was a room suspended in space, separate, far away from family life. Rather clever. One thing I really liked is that it looked like a completely different set when we moved for the discussion, which I thought also worked well with some of the themes.