The Stage Language Laboratory
REASONS FOR THE PROJECT
For some years, blind and partially sighted professional performers have been steadily recognizing the lack of creative opportunities for them in their profession. It is felt this is because a way of working on stage specifically appropriate for them as blind performers, has never been created. They have repeatedly found themselves being moulded into traditional approaches to stage work, which has proved to be stultifying for them as performers.
Damien O’Connor:
“At present, there are very few visually impaired people working in the theatre, and those of us that have had some training, have, invariably, worked in isolation and without the support of others with similar cultural experiences. I have, for the most part, worked in inaccessible and often dangerous spaces, with people who have little or no understanding of issues relating to performers with visual impairments. I have taking on roles in which I have to play the character as being sighted. Thus, in some way denying my own impairment and pretending, for the benefit of others, that it wasn’t there. In fact, people have often said, “When you were on stage, I forgot you were blind”. At a theatre festival in Poland I experienced the same thing. I attended a number of performances of plays given by visually impaired performers from Poland, Spain and Croatia. These were performers who were directed by sighted directors and they too, played their characters as sighted characters. The performances were very well rehearsed over a long period of time and the performances were very polished. However, I couldn’t help thinking that If these performers had some kind of language or working method of their own, they would be able to give a much more believable performance.
In contrast, at the same festival, I attended a number of performances given by companies made up of deaf performers. The use of sign language gave these performers the tools that their visually impaired counterparts did not have. The commonality of experience, the availability to speak the same language, and to communicate with each other and their audience on their own terms made their performances much more exciting, dynamic and accessible to them and their audience.”
Liz Porter:
“I was born deaf in one ear and blind with cataracts, squint ‘and nystagmus, but my sight was corrected to partial sight after a series of operations. Like many other practicing visually impaired artists I have often experienced difficulties in obtaining employment and understanding within the creative industry. My own experience at Drama school led me to endeavour to conform to what I thought the industry might expect from sighted performers. I had been so amazed to even obtain a place in such an establishment that the thought of asking for the lessons to be provided in
an accessible fashion didn’t really enter the equation. Indeed on commencing training I was subjected to a one term probation simply because the teachers didn’t know whether I would be able to fit in and participate at an equal pace. They had never worked with visually impaired performers before. Hence I relied on verbal descriptions of action and great powers of my own concentration during dance lessons particularly.
Actual hands on experience would have achieved better results. I just thought I had better try and do things the same way as everyone else, thinking that this would be solid preparation for the real theatrical world later on. I was also told that the creative performer relies a great deal on eye contact and facial expression. Audience members have commented in passing upon my eye movement, and even though I know that I look partially sighted I often wondered why I wanted to conceal this fact and adopt the approach of full sight which is something I clearly cannot do.
We have long debated the chance to explore our cultural identity as visually impaired performers and promote our work, so When Maria Oshodi suggested the formation of EXTANT and asked me to participate in the Stage Language Laboratory Project, I was delighted.”
Liam O’Carroll:
“In this project I didn’t want to devise a new training program enabling visually impaired performers to convince audiences that they were sighted. Each time I portray a sighted character, I am told afterwards by audience members that they had no idea I was blind. This concealment may suit the requirements of mainstream theatre with its established plays and characters that need to be played sighted, but in terms of theatre of the blind, it removes the whole basis of the project. To establish Theatre for blind people, we needed to embrace and use our disability, not deny and reject it. Yes I am concerned with my difficulties but not necessarily with how they might be overcome. I wanted to exploit our access problems, incorporating their solutions into the creative process, combining access with both stylized and naturalistic theatre. If our strengths and weaknesses, habits and tendencies, preferences and aversions set us apart from others, let us engage with them, enjoy seeing which ones we share between ourselves and discover how they may be the foundations for something special, unique and cultural.”
Maria Oshodi:
“I have worked in the arts for nearly fifteen years, and during this time, I have grown steadily more conscious of a fixed role that blindness appears to play in Theatre. It seems either over used as a metaphorical theme, or in the portrayal of a ‘character, who often through their condition is rendered a victim, and or an emotional mess. This is compounded by a stereo typed physical immobility and awkwardness usually attached to these portrayals, and as this is not my personal experience of blindness, I have become increasingly frustrated at receiving these repeated impressions.
The water shed came for me at the end of 1996, when I found myself playing one of these typical blind characters in a recently written play, funded by the Arts Council, and acclaimed for its exploration of, amongst other things, disability.
As the writer/director thought he was doing enough in having a blind person playing the part, it was impossible to encourage him away from his bland depiction of blindness.
He naturally directed my role as a virtually static performance with me being clumsily led on and off stage, and this added to my frustration as a creative performer. Certain questions confronted me.
Why had this type of portrayal become an acceptable model for blindness? Why were there no attempts being made to artistically break blindness out of this damaging mould? The answers seemed quite clear. Firstly the ignorance of mainly sighted Theatre practitioners who know no better than to use a one dimensional idea of blindness, and secondly their basic fear of it, which keeps their physical exploration of it very limited.
So, at the start of 1997, when I found myself released from that unhappy production and it’s emotional and political rigors, I decided to devote some time to thinking constructively about a ‘Blind Theatre’ project’ about which there had been a murmur for some time.”