Nina Raine’s ‘Tribes’ by PTC (3rd review)

In his first minute on stage, during a conventional family gathering at his London home, Christopher is aggressively argumentative. His crude language (cunt, fuck, fucking) and his denigration of others — especially his children — is off-putting.

The problem arises from Christopher’s background, as a reading of Nina Raine’s script reveals. He’s from northern England, not part of London intellectual life, and clearly has tried to infiltrate it by writing argumentative books and speaking coarsely. He’s a fish out of water struggling for recognition.

Christopher despises the mutual back-scratching practiced by writers: “‘You say something nice about my book, and I’ll say something nice about yours’— the coral reef school of criticism. They all stick together.” Once we understand that Christopher feels left out, we see Tribes as a play about all people who are trying to be heard.

Unique casting

Most conspicuous and appealing is Billy, the youngest of Christopher’s three children. Billy was born deaf and was raised to read lips and forbidden to learn sign language. His father insisted that sign language is “broken English”— an inferior substitute— and he didn’t want his son to appear to be a handicapped minority.

A unique casting choice for Billy reinforces Philadelphia Theatre Company’s production. The script describes Billy as in his “20s.” The actors who played him in London, New York, and Chicago were close to 30, whereas Tad Cooley is 20 and looks it. This casting helps the drama, placing Billy at a stage in life where it’s natural to separate from his parents and reach out for new experiences.

Those of us with normal hearing think of deaf people as homogeneous, and Tribes reveals sharp differences among those who lack hearing. Many of the hearing-impaired feel that sign language is the most expressive way to communicate — and, therefore, superior. Others among them look down on hearing-impaired folks who refuse to sign.

Many folks assume that the hearing-impaired choose their form of communication based on distance — reading lips when close to people, signing when distant (as, say, when attending theater). The truth, as Tribes perceives, is that there are distinct, and sometimes antagonistic, camps.

Pretending to listen

When people begin to lose their hearing and have trouble following conversations, they frequently begin to withdraw. They smile and pretend to listen, but they find comfort by concentrating on their own thoughts. Quiet is peaceful.

Unlike Billy, his girlfriend Sylvia (Amanda Kearns) is just losing her hearing now, in her early 20s. "I'm not deaf from birth,” she explains, “so that makes me less good than someone who is....Billy's at the top of the pile because he's deaf from birth."

Tribes reminds us that some deaf people prefer being deaf, because deafness insulates them from distracting and discordant sounds — especially the type that come from loudmouths like Christopher.

And that thought brings us back to the music cue that opens Act I: a mélange of dissonant, cacophonic tones. It’s entirely appropriate for this particular tribe.

To read another review by Dan Rottenberg, click here.

To read another review by Naomi Orwin, click here.