Lauren Ridloff is a mime, a dancer, an enchanted being who is impossible not to watch at all times. When she signs as Sarah, the deaf woman who refuses to speak like those in the hearing world, she reveals a language full of animation, emotion, and grace. Her face, hands, and entire body vividly describe what she wants to get across. Enter James Leeds, who has been hired to teach verbal speech at the school for the deaf where Sarah is employed as a maid. As played by former “Dawson’s Creek” matinee idol Joshua Jackson, he’s charming, handsome, and driven. It’s not lost on the audience that Jackson does double dialogue duty, since he interprets aloud what Sarah is saying. James asks Sarah out to an Italian restaurant, where he’s delighted by her dancing to the vibrations of the music. Sarah’s original animosity very soon turns to attraction, in the manner of meet-cute couples down through the decades. Not only is it questionable whether or not James and Sarah are breaking the mores of the college by getting involved, headmaster Franklin (Anthony Edwards) clearly disapproves. Also not thrilled are student Lydia (Treshelle Edmond), who has more than a slight crush on James, and student activist Orin (John McGinty), who fears Sarah will be lost to the cause when she moves out of the school and in with James. When Lydia reports the affair to Dr. Franklin, James and Sarah decide that rather than break up, they’ll marry and live together across the street from the school. They’re very much in love, but problems invariably arise. On the bright side, Sarah and her mother (Kecia Lewis) are able to reconcile after a long estrangement. But the arrival of a lawyer (Julee Cerda), who vows to help Orin win a discrimination suit against the school, stirs up a lot of suppressed feelings. Sarah has had a difficult past; in one of the most famous monologues of the show, she tells James of her days of being taken advantage of by her sister’s male friends, then defiantly announces that she liked this sexual form of “communication,” because she was as good—no, better—at it than the girls who could hear. In a heated argument, James throws this confession back in her face; Sarah lashes out that she resents the fact that James doesn’t accept her as she is. The playbill tells us that this whole story takes place “in the mind of James Leeds,” and there is a dreamy quality about the set and staging. The lighting varies according to the mood that’s being established, the colors including purple and fuchsia. That that there’s an overhead screen with the dialogue available for the non-hearing audience is both understandable and distracting. This is the first Broadway revival since the landmark 1980 production, which won Tony, Drama Desk, and Olivier awards for Best Play. Sensibilities have chained since then; we are now more aware of what is or isn’t politically correct, way beyond lawyer Klein’s gaff in calling Sarah “dumb.” But we’re still often in a quandary as to what is acceptable, and what is gauche. James is right when he points out that Sarah needs to speak in order to get a job in the hearing world. And by being so intransigent, isn’t she hurting herself by refusing to lip read and to attempt to speak? It’s a sticky wicket; many in the deaf world feel that being coerced into conformity with the hearing world violates their rights, destroys their sense of community, and casts then in the role of the pathetic less-than-good. For both sides of the argument, we need look no further than the debate over cochlear implants. It’s also interesting to note that much has been made of the inclusion as a producer of Nyle DiMarco, the deaf activist who gained fame as the winner of both “America’s Next Top Model” and “Dancing with the Stars.” At the end of the production, we are left with just as many questions as when we started, and maybe more. We are also rooting for James and Sarah to get back together and make their marriage work. All relationships have challenges, and we all need to do a better job of listening to our partner.
