Communism Shows Signs of Collapse

“Slavs!” features eloquent, lengthy discussions of socialism, regime change, faulty government systems, and poverty within the first few minutes of the play. And those first few minutes set the precedent for the rest of the show. Penned by “Angels in America” author Tony Kushner, “Slavs!” explores the ideas, emotions, and philosophies of twelve different citizens before and after the failure of the Soviet Union. The play is thought-provoking, intellectual—and wordy.

With a script so oriented toward talk, “Slavs!” seems like a strange choice to interpret in American Sign Language (ASL). For example, when Janelle Mills, a faculty assistant at Harvard Business School, delivered a stirring monologue on the problems of the Soviet Union as activist Aleksii Antedilluvianovich Prelapsarianov, her stirring performance was almost completely based in her voice.

The challenge of translating such a stirring spech into sign language was masterfully achieved by the show’s interpreters, who were actors in their own right, conveying the emotions and personalities of the characters with their body language as they interpreted the spoken words of the stage with their hands.

When a lesbian worker named Kat, played by Catrin M. Lloyd-Bollard ’08, rebukes her would-be lover Poppy (Edward Hichez), the interpreter translating Kat’s part actually looked vividly angry while the interpreter translating Poppy’s part looked suitably pathetic. Later, when Kat described her sexual plans for the night to her lesbian lover “B,” played by Zia A. Okocha ’08, the interpreter—rolling her eyes, throwing back her head, and arching her back—seemed utterly consumed with desire.

Leon Jefita, a hearing-impaired audience member from the Cambridge community, was enthusiastic about the performance. Although he admitted that “Slavs!” was difficult to keep up with, he said that he enjoyed it just the same.

“It’s a lot about history, so it’s interesting. I’m a historian, so it was amazing to see what the characters had to say,” Jefita said.

He also said that during the parts where the action was far more verbal than physical, he focused on the interpreters so that he could get the academic and historical gist of the play’s content. But during parts where the acting was very flamboyant, Jefita focused his attention on the actors and managed to glean what was happening through their movements and body language.

“Slavs!” may be in essence a play completely made up of discussions—about philosophy, capitalism, socialism, ideologies, poverty, corrupt regimes, repressed desires, and sexuality. But the interpreters—as well as the set and costume designers, the actors, and the production team that decided to do the interpreted performance in the first place—deserve a standing ovation for their work, which managed to illustrate those discussions so visually and vividly.