Joshua Jackson, starring as James Leeds in the revival of Children of a Lesser God, has to be one of the hardest working actors on Broadway. Not only does he speak and sign his own dialogue, he must also speak and sign for Sarah, a deaf former student who becomes his wife. In fact, at one point in the second act, James even complains of arm cramps. Jackson, who is known to TV audiences from “Dawson’s Creek” and “The Affair,” is surprisingly good, evincing a broader range of emotions and ability than his TV roles have shown. Sarah Norman, portrayed by the talented Lauren Ridloff (former Miss Deaf America), is angry. She uses her hands and her entire slender frame and face to convey her passion. Even without hearing her actual words, we perceive Ridloff’s hostility. She resents anyone trying to make her fit into the hearing world. The actress, making her Broadway debut, was discovered when she was hired by Director Kenny Leon to teach him ASL. Jackson learned sign language for the role. Sarah refuses to lip read or to try to speak. After James and Sarah marry, he continues to urge her to speak. He says it’s the way to connect to the rest of the world, but she feels it’s selling out. Like many others, I found the play incredibly powerful when I first saw it on Broadway year ago. So much so that it resonated with me for years. Naturally, I approached this revival with expectations. However, in this version, the climax that should have been moving felt deflated. Although the acting is quite good, somehow the show misses its emotional mark. Is it because the play is close to 40 years old, having premiered in 1979 when it won the Tony for Best Play? The drama, by Mark Medoff, starring Phyllis Frelich and John Rubinstein, was supposedly inspired by Frelich’s relationship with her husband, Robert Steinberg. The revival’s scenic design by Derek McLane is simplistic with columns and a few aluminum benches. When James climbs the tree outside Sarah’s dorm window, he shimmies up one of the poles. Treshelle Edmond is engaging as Lydia, a flirtatious, naive young woman who is a student of Jim’s. John McGinty gives a strong performance as Orin, the partially deaf student, who is demanding the school hire deaf teachers. The supertitles during the show make Children of a Lesser God one of the most accessible plays on Broadway, However, I found the captions distracting, causing me to miss the powerful buildup of the emotion onstage. Sarah lives in a world of silence and we, the audience, leave the cacophony of sounds of the New York City streets to enter the Studio 54 theater. How different and impactful the show would be if, for only a short time, we would experience the silence that Sarah lives with. Then maybe we’d “stop judging and start listening.“
