Full Circle

Although Nathan has not had a lot of ASL interpreting jobs lately due to a change in laws concerning what level of certification is required to be hired, he has been working with the Utah Festival Opera this summer to provide interpreting for several shows. A few months ago, he interpreted for a children’s production based on the extremely popular Elephant and Piggie books by Mo Willams. He had a ball doing that one and absolutely loved seeing little faces light up when Deaf children were able to experience live theater for the first time.

Over the past several months, he has been preparing to interpret for a production of the high school version of Les Misérables. He works with a team of interpreters, and they have been practicing and planning for quite a while. One member of the team is an official interpreter employed by the Disney company and Nathan thought it was pretty neat to be able to work with an obviously highly skilled and experienced interpreter. He took advantage of the opportunity to ask questions and get some insights into being a professional interpreter.

One of the things that Les Mis has that Elephant and Piggie does not is a good smattering of cuss words and quite a bit of inuendo. Interpreting is all about conveying the ideas and words given and editing or changing words is not the name of the game, so Nathan has actually had some conundrums about how to interpret some of those things that are not taught in the classroom. But he knew he needed to be able to appropriately interpret whatever a client might throw his way. To that end, he recently went to a weekend workshop about swearing in ASL and let me tell you, he learned some extremely colorful new signs. I think he told me the included vocab list was seventeen pages, and included multiple words and phrases he had never been exposed to before, either in sign or spoken English. LAUGHING WITH TEARS SMILEY And even those this production was the slightly tamed high school version, he still had plenty of opportunities to use his newly gained knowledge!

One of the things Nathan loves about this type of performance interpreting is seeing the reactions of those for whom he is interpreting. One of his highlights for this show was seeing one Deaf audience member moved to tears by the action onstage and the accompanying interpreting gave them everything they needed to be emotionally engaged in the story. Another of his highlights was meeting Millicent Simmonds, a Deaf actress who starred in the movie “A Quiet Place.” Apparently, she lives in the area, and Nathan was a little bit starstruck. He wanted to ask for a selfie with her but thought it would be unprofessional. As such, he opted not to. But he was excited to meet her and to have her tell their interpreting team that they did a great job!

Some of his friends attended the performance today so they could show their support. At some point I’d like to be able to attend one of these performances as well. But as you all well know, our lives are just a little bit busy right now. He really enjoys these theatrical interpreting gigs though, so I suspect there will be more opportunities in the future! 

Nathan told us that interpreting for this particular show was kind of a full circle moment for him. A few years ago, when we all went to see the Broadway Across America production of Les Misérables, we happened to be at one of the performances where ASL interpretation was offered. It was the first time Nathan had been exposed to interpreting for a theatrical production, and he was absolutely mesmerized. He spent equal time watching the stage and watching the interpreters. After the show, he was totally excited about the possibility of combining several of his passions and interpreting for a show. And now, he can say that he has done so!

Less Miserable than 2020

Hard on the heels of our big trip to the northwest was our other big experience gift for this year. We had planned to give the kids tickets to see the Broadway tour company production of Les Misérables for Christmas in 2020. But as we all know, the world kind of took a hard left turn early that year and that particular show was one that was cancelled and not rescheduled. We got our money back and all that, but it was still a huge bummer. So when I heard that Les Mis would be back in our neck of the woods, I jumped at the chance to reschedule our missed experience. Thanks to my sister Patti and her status as a season ticket holder for Broadway Across America, we were able to get tickets. In fact, we were able to get really good tickets. 

The last time we all had an outing to see a Broadway show, Malia was not really old enough to care yet. But that was many years ago when we saw “Wicked.” (I have been to a couple shows since then, but it has been a mom and one son kind of a date.) At that point Malia didn’t mind staying home and she had a super fun time with her babysitter, but she is older now and wants to be included. Kevin and I are the only ones who have seen the Broadway production of Les Misérables, so the kids were all excited!

When we got to the theater, Nathan was extra excited to see that there were ASL interpreters for the show. Although they were down on the main floor, our seats near the front of the balcony made it so he could see them easily. Throughout the show, his focus was split between what was happening on the stage and the ASL version of what was happening. He has become deeply enmeshed in the ASL community in the past year and gets excited every time he encounters a new accommodation that will allow the deaf community to interact a bit more with the hearing world. He has attended symphony performances that have ASL interpreters, but this was the first time he has seen a stage play with such accommodations. As he is currently working towards passing the tests to become a certified interpreter, he loves any opportunity to learn a bit more. 

So let’s get real about this particular show for a minute. There are several songs that are pretty spicy, not things that I generally consider appropriate media. We did feel like we needed to avert our eyes a couple of times. ASL is obviously a visual language and a very descriptive one as well which makes sense since they are basically communicating with pictures. So, anything that is vulgar when spoken is even more so in ASL. Poor Nathan did not have a comfortable place to look. Looking at the stage was uncomfortable and looking at the interpreters was even more so. While the rest of us discreetly looked away to avoid the onstage action that accompanied those parts of the show, he was focused on his lap for those two numbers. So there were pros and cons to having a good view of the interpreters for this particular show. 😂

All of my kids love the arts in some form or another, and it is always fascinating for me to see what stands out to them. For Nathan, the ASL was the big focal point. Matthew was intrigued by orchestration and lighting, which makes perfect sense with his band/stage crew background. Daniel was also enthralled by the orchestra, but he also had strong feelings about the actor who played Jean Val Jean. There was something about his voice that just didn’t sit well with him, but he couldn’t quite figure out what it was. The man’s voice was spectacular, he was an amazing performer, but there was just something not quite right. As I mulled it over, I realized that the problem was the timbre of the singer’s voice. He was young man and as such, his voice sounds young. I don’t mean weak or unskilled or anything like that. He just had a wonderful, strong, youthful voice. And Jean Val Jean is not a young man. Even at the beginning of the story, he is old enough that he has been in prison for nineteen years. So what Daniel was missing was the depth and richness that simply comes with an older, more mature voice. When I tossed that idea at him, Daniel agreed that it was spot on. In another decade that same actor will still sing the part just as skillfully, but time and age will have given him the depth that both Daniel and I felt he was lacking. As for Malia, she had all her focus on trying to understand the story. She is still only eleven and hasn’t studied European history other than the bare bones version they need to be able to understand the American Revolution, so the whole war in the streets bit needed a modicum of explanation. But with some tidbits shared here and there, she ended up understanding enough and enjoyed the show.

We definitely enjoyed our second big experience for the year, perhaps even a bit more since it was delayed a couple of years. Now we are on the lookout for another show that we might enjoy. Malia is hoping “Wicked” will make the rounds again since she is the only one of our little crew who hasn’t seen it. There are relatively few new shows that seem particularly interesting to us, so we’ll just have to keep our eyes open and wait to see what makes it to our neck of the woods in the future.