A play in three languages
Salonica is a play in three languages, but only two are spoken aloud. The play, produced by New Zealand company Equal Voices Arts, is performed in a combination of English, Serbian and New Zealand Sign Language (NZSL).
Set in the Balkans during World War I, it tells the story of a Kiwi soldier (played by Deaf actor Shaun Fahey) who has concealed his deafness to join the fight. He strikes up an unlikely friendship with a hearing Serbian soldier (played by Mihailo Ladevac) and the two manage to communicate despite lacking a shared language.
Director Laura Haughey has developed the play so an audience member fluent in any of its three languages can understand it. Salonica uses mime and other physical theatre techniques to make it accessible.
‘‘Of course, a lot of the hearing audience won’t have sign language, and the deaf audience won’t be able to hear the actors speaking, so we have to find other ways of having shared spaces between the actors and the audience,’’ Haughey says.
‘‘Yes, not every audience member will get everything, but they get enough to follow what’s going on and get their own experience.’’
‘‘I hope that the audience get to taste or experience, if they’re hearing, the Deaf culture. And if they’re Deaf, I hope that they get to access a show in their own language, which is quite rare,’’ Haughey says.
‘‘We’re trying to do something that’s a bit new. We’re trying to put these languages on stage with equal status, as opposed to one being less important.’’
Haughey spent years working on theatre with Deaf performers in the UK before moving to New Zealand. Salonica is the second piece she’s worked on with Equal Voices Arts incorporating NZSL. It follows At The End Of My Hands, which toured in 2016.
Haughey met Salonica‘s Fahey during a workshop connected to At The End Of My Hands. He didn’t have any professional performance experience, but Haughey says his ability to use his body to tell stories could have been the result of an education at the famed Jacques Lecoq theatre school. Deaf actors like Fahey often have an instinctive understanding of physical theatre, Haughey says.
‘‘I particularly like working with deaf actors, they inherently understand what it means to work through the body and place your body at the centre of the work, and I’m a physical theatre practitioner, so it makes sense to me.’’
Haughey and the cast took the play to Europe earlier this year, performing in the UK, Serbia and Montenegro.
At the Serbian National Theatre in Belgrade, they recorded several firsts: theirs was the first New Zealand work performed at the theatre, the first time sign language had been performed on the stage, and the first production accessible to the Serbian Deaf community.
Fifty or 60 Deaf people were in the audience, and despite Serbian Sign Language being totally different from NZSL, they still understood the signed parts of the performance.
‘‘In the Belgrade performance, the feedback from the Deaf audience was that they understood Sean perfectly clearly and that’s very special. Deaf people just seem to have that magic because they are master communicators.’’
In the foyer after the show, Fahey was treated like George Clooney, but Haughey struggled to be understood by the Serbians.
‘‘I sign moderately well, but I was lost. They were struggling to understand me, because I’m not a native sign language speaker. So it was beautiful to watch.’’
❚ Salonica will be performed at Wellington’s Circa Theatre from February 15-17. For more information and tickets, see circa.co.nz.