Fringe and EIF theatre reviews: The Singer | [Seagull]

The Singer ★★★★

Traverse Theatre (Venue 15) until 30 August

[Seagull] ★★★★

EIF at The Studio until 11 August

British sign language has been a strong presence in Scottish theatre over recent years, with the Royal Conservatoire of Scotland now offering a ground-breaking course for Deaf and hard of hearing actors.

Yet it’s still thrilling to see BSL - and the community whose first language it is - set as boldly and brilliantly centre stage as it is in Cora Bissett’s new show The Singer, produced by Dundee Rep, Aberdeen Performing Arts and Solar Bear, and based on her short film co-created with the show’s star, Jamie Rea.

The Singer is a Glasgow story about a young Deaf man, the same Jamie, who has always had a profound response to music - which he experiences as rhythm and beats, using a special amplifying back-pack - and whose life begins to change when he meets struggling musician and songwriter Andy, played with apologetic charm by Dylan Wood.

They discover a shared gift for writing songs together, Jamie providing the beats and lyrics, Andy the melody; but where Jamie has a relatively sorted life - a decent flat, work as a support teacher, and endless support of his own from his remarkable grandparents, who brought him up - Andy is a troubled soul inclined to flee from the commitment implied in this new creative relationship, in ways that amount to a deep and bitter betrayal.

It might be possible to quibble with the play’s brave decision to present Jamie’s magical grandparents as a kind of grand-guignol cartoon couple, she a remarkable Glasgow working-class nan in glowing red-haired wig and much lipstick, he endlessly translating her patter into sign language. Yet Hannah Jarrett-Scott and Peter Dobre meet the challenge of playing these two - alongside many other dramatic and musical roles - so brilliantly that the effect is as human, compassionate and funny as it is startlingly theatrical.

As the story evolves, it becomes clear that Jamie’s huge gift as a performer - signing and dancing his way through the lyrics and music of his and Andy’s songs - has the power to transform their lives, and to redeem them both; and if the show’s ending has an element of fairytale about it - well, why not, in a joyful production full of screens, sounds and technical complexities beautifully co-ordinated, and placed entirely at the service of a human story both remarkable and inspiring, and full of heart, body and soul.

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Equally thought-provoking - but in a quieter style - is the sign-language-based production of Chekhov’s The Seagull staged at the The Studio by Toneelhuis and Olympique Dramatique of Belgium, as part of the international festival.

This Seagull is not a show about deafness, but simply a serious and occasionally brilliant experiment in telling one of the most familiar stories in classic theatre with almost no spoken dialogue, and a mixed Deaf and hearing company using sign language with surtitles, and other body language, to convey the story.

Over two and a half hours without an interval, the effect is sometimes subdued, in the absence of the constant rise and fall of speaking voices. They are replaced, here, by the occasional cry of rage, pain or laughter, and the clatter of feet on wooden staging; and by the time we reach the play’s traumatic final act, the translating surtitles have deliberately broken down, and then vanished completely.

Yet with Sofie Decleir delivering an utterly compelling performance as Arkadina, and Yana Wujytens matching her as her driven and desperate son Konstantin, Stijn van Opstal’s production emerges as a profound and beautiful reminder that drama is not primarily a matter of spoken words; and that when verbal language and poetry returns to our stages, it must be as powerfully linked to the movement of the drama, and the life of the body, as the sign language in this remarkable and memorable show. Joyce McMillan

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