Shhhhh!

Last week I had a most interesting experience. My friend Emily and I had long been wanting to go to Na laga'at (Hebrew for "please touch") and see a show there. This is a unique experience because the theatre contains three parts: one is a restaurant called Black Out in which all the food is served in the dark; another is a cafe called Capish where all the waiters are deaf; and the main attraction is a show in which almost all the actors are either deaf or deaf-blind called "Not By Bread Alone".

We decided to go to an evening at the theatre and some coffee afterwards. I must say, we were pleasantly surprised. The show consisted of an introduction of the actors, and then them talking about and enacting some of their dreams: walking without assistance, going to the movies, and getting married. The point was to show that deaf-blind people have the same hopes and dreams as hearing people.

The logistics of the show were a sight to behold: actors were lead around stage by black-clad assistants who were also voice and sign interpreters, the use of light and sounds were fantastic, and the entire show was captioned in Hebrew, Arabic and English with voice interpretation for the signing and sign interpretation for the speaking parts.


But the coolest part (I thought) was the end. At the start of the show, all the actors are introduced one-by-one as they are kneading bread. They then bake the bread in ovens on stage, and at the end (spoiler: it ends with a wedding) the audience is invited to come up on stage, eat the bread and talk with the actors, all of whom have interpreters with them. And come they did! Many people came up to talk with them, either using the interpreters, signing for themselves or using Braille sheets to communicate. There was even one deaf-blind guy who used an alphabet glove to communicate!

We ended the evening in Capish, the cafe staffed by deaf people. Turns out I know the manager. Small (deaf) world.

Here's a news clip about the theatre (CCed):



Later in the week we visited the Holon Children's Museum, which has a permanent exhibit entitled "Invitation to Silence". I was hoping for something more along the lines of what it's like to be deaf, to give people an idea of what that experience is like (it's sister exhibit, "Dialogue in the Dark", does just that). Instead, "Invitation to Silence" takes away all vocal and written communication and teaches the participants how to communicate using gestures, facial expressions, hand shapes; it's a great primer for anyone that is learning a signed language or is traveling to a country where they don't know the spoken language and may need other means of communication. It was definitely an eye-opening (pun!) experience for the people that went through the exhibit with us (Emily and I already know ASL so...).

So that was it: our week of deafness. And I'm still at the Institute for the Advancement of Deaf Persons in Israel once a week, and occasionally sit in on the ASL class they're teaching. I'll be teaching my own ASL class this spring here in Jerusalem, which should be fun. It's actually just a one-on-one, but who's counting?