What This Production of ‘Hands’ Needs Is Heart

In the decade since the Mark Taper Forum premiered Mark Medoff’s backstage drama “The Hands of Its Enemy,” a kind of follow-up to his “Children of a Lesser God,” plays featuring American Sign Language have not flourished.

Consequently, ASL-style theater now largely means revivals of Medoff’s plays, which feature hearing-impaired characters helping others whose ears are fine but whose hearts are closed. Saddleback College is staging one such revival of “Hands” in its Studio Theatre.

It’s the right setting for the play, whose action happens on a university stage and whose birth was at the Las Cruces campus of New Mexico State University, where Medoff was teaching when he wrote it. So there’s a built-in verisimilitude that one might expect would help director Patrick J. Fennell’s production.

But despite all the trappings, and the cast’s close bonds with the play’s college theater milieu, Medoff’s drama ends up dramatically flat and facile. The cast is visibly shaky, which does not put “Hands” in the best hands.

We are in early and deep trouble when a tense scene--in which college administrator-cum-actor Edgar Donner (Monte Collins) attacks the bitter, alcoholic visiting director Howard Bellman (David M. Evans)--comes off as a piece of unintended comedy. It’s hardly the right bridge to this play’s dramatic heart, and the production never really finds its compass from there.

There’s a lot of hope in National Theatre of the Deaf actor Mary K. Hoy’s performance as Marieta, whose autobiographical play, “In Defense of Another,” becomes the battleground between her and Howard. Hoy’s ASL says volumes, artfully shifting between gentle and violent gesturing, a beautiful example of how the hand can speak for the mouth.

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Yet Hoy’s total immersion in her character is pretty much lost on her cast members, who suffer from almost uniform vocal woodenness. Evans goes through the motions of Howard’s tormented director, alternately self-destructive and dogged in pushing Marieta to get to the truth of her play. But his Howard isn’t as scary, or as finally heroic, as he should be.

Whether in their characters or in their play-within-the-play characters, Collins and Katie Brittle (as Marieta’s daughter and alter-ego) have much work to do to break down their onstage stiffness. As Howard’s ex, Tisha Bellantuoni is definitely not stiff and grows in her double roles. Mat Genuser, playing Marieta’s translator, tries to work up sufficient rage at points, but it’s all work and no feeling.

It isn’t hard to conclude that director Fennell needed to push his college artists along as much as Howard does Marieta (and she him) to pursue the play’s emotional core about artistic and personal honesty. The first edition of “Hands” felt like a theatrical boxing match, because Medoff wrote it that way. To be true to a play about theatrical truth, the Saddleback actors must become fighters.

* “The Hands of Its Enemy,” Saddleback College Studio Theatre, 28000 Marguerite Parkway, Mission Viejo. Today, 3 and 8 p.m.; Sunday, 3 p.m. Ends Sunday. $7-$8. (714) 582-4656. Running time: 2 hours.

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“The Hands of Its Enemy,”

Mary K. Hoy: Marieta

David M. Evans: Howard

Tisha Bellantuoni: Diane/Nicky

Monte Collins: Edgar/Leo

Katie Brittle: Amanda/Corrine

Mat Genuser: Mel

Jason Meyer Cohn: T.O. Finn

Diane L. Dunn: Elma

Justin Smith: Assistant Stage Manager

A Saddleback College Theatre Arts Department production of Mark Medoff’s drama. Directed by Patrick J. Fennell. Set: Wally Huntoon. Lights and sound: Kevin Cook. Costumes and makeup: Diane Lewis. ASL consultant: Char Hutchinson.