"Tribes' and "4000 Miles' in New York

"If what you want is for the play to be heard, then you must conjure its sound from it."

When the director Peter Brook wrote those words almost 50 years ago in his classic study, The Empty Space, he hadn't experienced British playwright Nina Raine's groundbreaking Tribes. This new play needs no conjuring. It offers sounds all on its own, sounds you've never heard before— the sounds of thinking and feeling, for example.

Tribes is a play about a deaf man named Billy, specifically how he communicates with his hearing family and his girlfriend Sylvia. Who is lonelier, who is wiser, who is more loving and understanding? That's for us to discover in this revelatory new work.

Act I finds Billy returning to his family's home for a reunion. It's a home filled with the noise of radio, TV, piano, pot-banging, drawer-slamming, shouting and arguing. The din itself is nearly deafening. But we quickly learn that the sounds are meaningless, because Billy"“ sensitively played by Russell Harvard"“ can't hear them.

And yet Billy functions fully in the world of the hearing, because his father, mother and siblings, unable to accept his deafness, have forced him to adapt to their world. Raising him, they have armed him with hearing aids, forbidden him to learn signing, and taught him to lip-read and speak instead.

Changing places

Then Billy brings Sylvia home and turns the family's world upside down. Sylvia's parents are deaf, and she is fluent in signing, but since Billy isn't, the two of them make do with speaking. Then Sylvia reveals that she too is going deaf. She dreads entering that world, and resists it with all her might.

Act II finds Billy and Sylvia changing places. He now reveals that he has felt like a second-class citizen in the world of the hearing, and that he's tired of adapting. He wants to retreat into the world of the deaf— the one Sylvia dreads entering— where he belongs. So he learns signing from Sylvia, stops lip-reading and refuses to speak to his parents and siblings until they learn to sign.

As a result, his family begins to fall apart. The parents' marital dysfunction is exposed, as well as the psychological disturbance of Billy's brother, who begins to stammer and loses his own power of speech.

The inspired director David Cromer has chosen to stage this taut family drama in the round (or literally, in a square), with screens on each wall that suddenly begin to flash transcripts of the signed conversations between Billy and Sylvia that his family cannot "read" or understand. The family's whole system of communication is thrown into chaos; they must relearn in order to hear each other.

"This is the first time you're listening to me properly," Billy signs to them, "and it's because I'm not speaking."

Roar of static

The explosive second act finds the family learning to listen in new ways, beyond speech and sound. And so do we in the audience. The playwright and director have turned the tables on us, and now we're in Billy's world.

At some points, the relatives scream at Billy in anger. He rips out his hearing aids, and suddenly the roar of static is piped into the theater, drowning out their shouting. We're hearing his family as Billy hears them.

At other points, the characters engage in word-less, sign-less exchanges. Silence reigns on the stage, yet still we see flashes of dialogue on the screens. We're learning to hear in a new way.

Playwright Nina Raine has given us a voice from a world beyond sound and signing. It's a silent voice, straight from the heart, asking for love and understanding. And miraculously, theatrically, we hear it.

Grandmother's gift

Amy Herzog's 4000 Miles, now playing at the Mitzi Newhouse Theatre in Lincoln Center, is also a play about family and love— this time, in the unexpected relationship between a young man and his grandmother. Like Tribes, it's a small play about a big theme— communication.

It's 3 a.m. when the door opens in her Greenwich Village apartment and Grandma Vera, an octogenarian, finds her 20-something grandson Leo and his bicycle on the threshold. It should be a joyous reunion, save for two issues.

First, Leo is estranged from his mother and sister in St. Paul, who have been calling Vera frantically, looking for him. Second, Leo has cycled cross-country from Seattle with his best friend, Micah, who was killed on the way.

The problem: He won't talk about either issue. Leo is fleeing from his impending adulthood and responsibility, and takes temporary refuge with Grandma Vera.

Nothing happens, but….

As the play drifts gently from scene to scene over the three weeks that Leo stays with Vera, nothing much happens. His girlfriend Bec comes to visit, but Leo won't talk to her about his issues either, and their encounter ends in a quarrel. He picks up Amanda, a hottie, who, while in flagrante, asks about Micah"“ and their moment is gone. In between, Leo takes lessons in wall climbing and applies for summer jobs. That's about it.

What, then, is transpiring in those modest 100 minutes onstage? It's called listening. Over the weeks, while Vera and Leo share a cup of coffee and frozen Danish, fold laundry, chat about Marxism (their shared passion), hunt for lost keys and checkbooks, argue a little, even smoke pot together and discuss their respective sex lives, plenty of listening is happening— on the part of Grandma, played with crusty charm by the amazing Mary Louise Wilson (85 years old herself).

Ultimately, late one night, Leo tells the story of Micah's death, and the release helps him over the second threshold of the play, into manhood.

Grandma Vera acts as a catalyst, just by listening. It's an act of love and generosity in a funny, unpretentious little play about big things.