‘Mother’ Packs Emotional Punch--in Sign Language

Marsha Norman’s emotionally devastating “ ‘night, Mother” earned the 1983 Pulitzer Prize for drama, so there can be no argument about its pedigree. In a decade of increasingly escapist entertainments, a theater that dares to confront this tragedy deserves respect. After all, a mother’s futile struggles to block her daughter’s suicide is not a story calculated to appeal to a mass audience.

But what about hearing-impaired audiences?

Can Norman’s grim tale, which is told through eloquently homespun dialogue and as such resembles a Chekhovian parlor game of Russian roulette, be conveyed in American Sign Language? There is no physical struggle between Mama and Jessie. Their desperate ordeal is a verbal debate.

Deaf West Theatre Company’s decision to produce the wordy “ ‘night, Mother” seems bewildering. Yet this seemingly incongruous scheduling provides a stunning revelation about a contemporary classic. The actors’ urgency in their signing provokes even more heartbreak than would a standard presentation. Even the audience’s headsets offering simultaneous voice translations add to the play’s impact.

“ ‘night, Mother” is about communication, and the alienating effects of isolation when we fail to communicate. The script is littered with references to our reluctance to truly listen to others. Mama’s lifelong failure to accurately hear her daughter, and her daughter’s hunger to silence the voices in her head, are emphasized by the frantic hand signals between Freda Norman’s Mama and Elena Blue’s Jessie. In this context, a signed “Your hands aren’t washed” gets translated into a profound metaphor.

For Jessie, suicide offers peace. “Dead is dead quiet. . . . This is how I have my say and I say no to everything and all of it. No! I say no.”

“There is a shorthand to the talk,” the playwright suggests in the stage directions, “and a sense of routine comfort in the way they relate to each other physically.” Director Stephen Sachs has beautifully followed Norman’s observation, allowing the performers to maneuver in real time through the lushly detailed kitchen and living room by set designer Jim Barbaley. It’s no accident that we see three clocks prominently ticking away the seconds.

But there are problems with an ASL production that Sachs has not overcome. The original version relentlessly raced to its conclusion in 90 minutes, while here the hand gestures add a half-hour to the drama, undercutting the momentum. Although the gunshot is “felt” by Mama through the door--and it’s loud enough to make members of the audience jump off their seats--other crucial details seem incongruous, such as Mama’s last signed words. It would be more effective and emotionally true to allow Mama a vocal exclamation, no matter how incoherent. After all, by the end an audience has heard Deaf West’s message loud and clear. By language or by sound, we understand heartbreak.

* “ ‘night, Mother,” Deaf West Theatre, 660 N. Heliotrope Drive, Hollywood. Thursdays-Sundays 8 p.m., Saturday and Sunday matinees, 3 p.m. Ends March 20. $12-$15. (213) 660-0877 (voice); (213) 660-8826 (TTY). Running time: 2 hours.

‘Schippel’ an Entertaining Outing

The title doesn’t exactly roll off the tongue: “Schippel, the Plumber.” It’s a name you might notice peeling off the door of a rusty pickup truck. But California Repertory Company, in tandem with the Goethe Institut, obviously liked the odd title enough to risk mounting the American premiere. The result is an entertaining, occasionally inspired, briskly paced evening of old-fashioned comedy reminiscent of silent movie slapstick.

British playwright C. P. Taylor’s adaptation of German Expressionist Carl Sternheim’s satire of upper-class pretentiousness requires a cast with musical talents galore. At the turn of the century, a German vocal quartet has lost one member to the grim reaper, and now must replace his sterling voice. Who’s the finest tenor? Alas, the best available voice belongs to a plumber named Schippel.

Schippel’s low social status is compounded by the fact that he’s “a bastard,” and such obscure origins clash with the quartet’s belief that they’re “a new class of humanity evolving a higher class of man.” Hitler’s Reich is just around the corner, but more immediately so are numerous farcical elements. The class clashes are richly staged by director Steve McCue, complete with props such as a ladder and piano.

* “Schippel, The Plumber,” California Repertory Company, 7th/West Campus Drive, California State University, Long Beach. Wednesdays-Saturdays, 8 p.m., matinees at 2 p.m. this Saturday and Feb. 26. Ends March 5. $15. (310) 985-5526. Running time: 2 hours, 30 minutes.

A Witty, Shallow Visit to the ‘Closet’

John Benjamin Martin knows how to keep us amused. His characters tell jokes without revealing the playwright’s darker purpose. And what might that purpose be? For an answer, visit “The Water Closet.” If the prolific writer’s latest effort at the Burbage Theatre provides any clue, Martin’s purpose is to reveal that human beings are nothing beyond body functions. We are what we discharge.

It’s a tribute to director John Pieplow and a gifted ensemble that this peep show into “the restrooms of a somewhat trendy nightclub” make us howl in spite of our better moral judgment. The women, reduced by men to objects of sexual conquest, in turn dismiss the men.

Permeating the trivial singles action is terror of the opposite sex. The fear in these restrooms is palpable. But Martin’s writing also succumbs to this fear. Just when “The Water Closet” is poised to plunge past the easy jokes and amusing stereotypes, he pulls back.

* “The Water Closet,” Burbage Theatre, 2330 Sawtelle Blvd., West Los Angeles. Sundays, 7 p.m. Ends Feb. 27. $15. (310) 478-0897. Running time: 2 hours.