{"id":11415,"date":"2014-05-02T09:35:39","date_gmt":"2014-05-02T16:35:39","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/forallevents.com\/reviews\/?p=11415"},"modified":"2014-05-03T07:50:28","modified_gmt":"2014-05-03T14:50:28","slug":"tribes-is-laugh-out-loud-yet-profound-berkeley-rep-play","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/forallevents.com\/reviews\/tribes-is-laugh-out-loud-yet-profound-berkeley-rep-play\/","title":{"rendered":"\u2018Tribes\u2019 is laugh-out-loud yet profound Berkeley Rep play"},"content":{"rendered":"
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Billy (James Caverly) signs for Beth (Anita Carey), his mom, and siblings Daniel (Dan Clegg) and Ruth (Elizabeth Morton) in \u201cTribes.\u201d Photo courtesy of mellopix.com.<\/p><\/div>\n

Woody’s [rating:4.5]<\/span><\/p>\n

Distance can be crucial \u2014 ordinarily.<\/p>\n

Ergo, as a critic, I try to remain at least one or two steps removed from whatever I\u2019m evaluating.<\/p>\n

But I couldn\u2019t help but take \u201cTribes\u201d \u2014 the Berkeley Rep\u2019s comic drama about deafness, identity and love, the need to belong and the need to be heard \u2014 personally.<\/p>\n

My wife, Nancy Fox, is responsible.<\/p>\n

She\u2019s been experiencing a deteriorating hearing loss for eight years, so the play had particular meaning \u2014 and discomfort \u2014 for her (and, by osmosis, for me).<\/p>\n

Emotionally, she related most to Sylvia (sensitively depicted by Nell Geisslinger), a hearing person gradually going deaf.<\/p>\n

\u201cShe feels different from everyone else, including her boyfriend who\u2019s been deaf from birth,\u201d Nancy observed, \u201cand is distressingly aware of her increasing difficulty. Watching her is painful.\u201d<\/p>\n

During intermission, while getting the better fitting headphones instead of the ear buds Berkeley Rep personnel originally had supplied, my wife added, \u201cI\u2019m constantly aware of how my own hearing loss is progressing, having observed it in my mother and grandmother.\u201d<\/p>\n

Nancy, a professional pianist, also appreciated Sylvia\u2019s musical predicament.<\/p>\n

\u201cWhen Sylvia was at the keyboard, it underscored the fact that the music she once heard and played was disappearing and eventually would not exist anymore. I can\u2019t imagine \u2014 and don\u2019t want to think about \u2014 what that would be like for me.\u201d<\/p>\n

Nancy was particular touched, too, by the bellowing yet silent outcry of Billy (James Caverly), Sylvia\u2019s boyfriend, when he signs that he\u2019s exhausted from having to say, \u201c\u2018What?\u2019 \u2018What?\u2019 \u2018What?\u2019 all the time.\u201d<\/p>\n

But she, and I, actually reveled in the aggregate professionalism of the ensemble cast (despite an accent or two slipping from time to time).<\/p>\n

In addition to Geisslinger and Caverly, the cast includes the artistry of Paul Whitworth as the burly father, Christopher, self-styled nonconformist who clearly adores that his kids have returned to his home and influence; Dan Clegg as Daniel, Billy\u2019s brother who\u2019s tormented by voices and is terrified Sylvia will whisk Billy away from him; Anita Carey as the mother, Beth, whose nascent novel morphed from being about a therapist to being about a family coming unglued; and Elizabeth Morton as Ruth, the sister who simultaneously craves a boyfriend and a singing career.<\/p>\n

British playwright Nina Raine provides one original scene after another, never succumbing to the sentimentality the subject matter might easily prompt.<\/p>\n

She\u2019s armed with a full quiver of crisp, deep yet hilarious dialogue \u2014 and she uses every arrow in it. She alternates noise-athons and silences as dexterously if she were crafting a symphonic masterwork replete with high highs and low lows.<\/p>\n

She focuses on Billy and Sylvia\u2019s relationship, sculpted in bas-relief against a backdrop of an often boisterous, sometimes garrulous, always opinionated family that, as one character claims, is a \u201chermetically sealed community\u201d \u2014 with no one allowed in if they aren\u2019t familiar with Czech composer Antonin Dvo\u0159\u00e1k.<\/p>\n

The main tribes of the title are not in dispute: Clearly they\u2019re the deaf community and the ultra-creative clan. That the family is Jewish is scarcely touched upon, a fact that\u2019s arguably ironic because of that group\u2019s tribal heritage.<\/p>\n

\u201cTribes,\u201d an off-Broadway success in 2012, opens with rapid-fire, frequently vulgar banter. It closes with tenderness.<\/p>\n

Along the way, it offers as fascinating a glimpse into a world I\u2019m unfamiliar with as the Berkeley Rep did via \u201cChinglish\u201d in 2012. And, like that one, this commendably uses the device of overhead projections of dialogue.<\/p>\n

I\u2019m sure director Jonathan Moscone, best known for his longtime role as artistic director of California Shakespeare Theater, was keenly aware that one out of six Americans has some form of hearing loss when he took the assignment.<\/p>\n

But he readily joined with dramatist Raine to make sure both hearing and hard-of-hearing theatergoers get a laugh-out-loud yet profoundly moving theatrical experience.<\/p>\n

“Tribes\u201d plays at the Berkeley Repertory\u2019s Roda Theatre, 2015 Addison St., Berkeley, through May 18. Night performances, Tuesdays, Thursdays, Fridays and Saturdays, 8 p.m.; Wednesdays and Sundays, 7 p.m.; matinees, Saturdays and Sundays, 2 p.m. Tickets: $14.50 to $99, subject to change, (510) 647-2949 or www.berkeleyrep.org.<\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Woody’s [rating:4.5] Distance can be crucial \u2014 ordinarily. Ergo, as a critic, I try to remain at least one or two steps removed from whatever I\u2019m evaluating. But I couldn\u2019t…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":32,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"yasr_overall_rating":0,"yasr_post_is_review":"","yasr_auto_insert_disabled":"","yasr_review_type":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[26],"tags":[],"class_list":{"0":"post-11415","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","6":"category-woody-weingarten"},"yasr_visitor_votes":{"stars_attributes":{"read_only":true,"span_bottom":"