CHILDREN OF A GREATER GOD

First performance - Jackson Lane Theatre, November 2004

Cast - Russ Aldersson, Donna Mullings, Daryl Jackson, Steven Webb, Steph Cobb and Peter Abraham

Directed by Paula Garfield
Co-Director - Kate Furby

Script by Tomato Lichy
Music by Marcos Marchese
Lighting by Jane Dutton
Produced by Paula Garfield

A love story between a Deaf woman and a speech therapist who is firmly convinced that 'his way' is the right way. But he knows less than he thinks about the Deaf community.
Can she changes his beliefs? Will he learn in time to save his relationship?
Can she teach him enough in time to save him? Can he open his mind enough?
What happens to these Deaf people he tries to help?

This is Deafinitely Theatre's challenging response to the famous play and Hollywood film 'Children of a Lesser God' (by the hearing writer Mark Medoff). We updated and revisited the story from a strong Deaf perspective, and we incorporated contemporary Deaf issues.

'Greater God' showcases our language, community, history, and culture, and the story of our struggle against these who mean to help, but are destroying our world.

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DYSFUNCTION

First performed at Oval House Theatre, February 2004

Cast - Paula Garfield, Daryl Jackson, Kate Furby and Simon Whitehouse

Directed by Steven Webb
Music by Marcos Marchese
Produced by Steven Webb

'Dysfunction' came from a shared desire to explore the bizarre aspects of family life. We focused on the relationships between a Deaf husband and wife (sue and Nigel) and their hearing teenage niece (Kara). This piece gave us the perfect opportunity to play with language and communication on different levels: between members of the family, between the Deaf and hearing characters and between the actors and audience. The total lack of awareness of each character to those around them created comic situations - balanced with moments of total tension and sadness.

This production was shown as an unfinished work in progress but our audience loved it, (see reviews) encouraging us to seek funding for a rewrite and a bigger production in July 2006.

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MOTHERLAND

First performed at Jackson Lane Theatre, June 2003

Cast - Steven Webb, Caroline Parker, Daryl Jackson, Kate Furby and Amit Sharma

Directed by Paula Garfield
Lighting by Ian Scott
Produced by Paula Garfield

'Motherland' developed the themes explored in our earlier play, Loss. Thanks to significant grant aid from the Arts Council, 'Motherland' was Deafinitely Theatre's first major project. We finally had proper funding to develop a creative process and the technical support to create a polished full length production of the play.

Positive audience feedback from the earlier performance of Loss helped to influence the changes to this play, in particular in developing the character of a Deaf boy in the Hitler Youth to emphasise a different view of the rise of Fascism.

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TWO CHAIRS

First performed at Oval House Theatre, January 2003

Cast - Steven Webb and Kate Furby

Directed by Paula Garfield
Produced by Paula Garfield

Two Chairs was a very challenging piece for us. We gave ourselves the task of devising a play with two actors - one hearing and one deaf. The characters would communicate with other in sign and speech but we decided there'd be no voice over or sign interpretation for either of them!

We wanted the audience to be able to understand and access the story but also feel the frustration of the characters as they attempted to communicate with each other and developed their friendship. Through this medium, we explored many issues - communication, love, tolerance, sickness, family and death. This enabled us, and the audience, to journey through a variety of emotions through situations which by turns were comical, irritating, moving and sad.

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LOSS

First performed at Oval House Theatre, September 2002

Cast - Caroline Parker, Ilan Dwek, Steven Webb and Kate Furby

Directed by Paula Garfield
Produced by Paula Garfield

Loss, the precursor to 'Motherland', was another short project to aimed at developing one of the influential events which shaped Deaf history and culture.
The chosen theme was the treatment of Deaf people at the hands of the Nazis.

'Loss' was born and evolved in a three week long creation / rehearsal process. It focuses on the experiences of a deaf woman sterilised as a teenager - her attempts to come to terms with the experience and the impact on her future life.

Like our first ever project, 'Deaf History', we incorporated various forms of visual storytelling, sign and speech into the production - highlighting Deafinitely Theatre's unique style of drama.

DEAF HISTORY

First performed at Notting Hill Gate Theatre , April 2002
Second run at Camden People Theatre, June 2002.

Cast - Ilan Dwek, Paula Garfield, Sarah Beauvoisin, Steven Webb, Kate Furby and Shane Irwin

Directed by Paula Garfield
Produced by Paula Garfield

This was Deafinitely Theatre's first ever project - an experiment where we, just a bunch of friends with no funding, got together for the first time to explore ways of developing an unique style of drama special to us and to Deaf theatre.

We decided to integrate 'voice over' (spoken word) into the dialogue of the drama, with sign, specifically BSL, as the dominant language of our productions.

The result produced a visual and dynamic theatre - Deafinitely Theatre was born! With this play, we created, evolved and discovered our new theatre identity. All our future plays followed this path of using strong BSL, being Deaf led, and with a total awareness of Deaf history, identity and conflicts.