Friday, April 16, 2010
In The Wings - Sign Language Interpreter - April, 2010
American Theatre Wing: Sign Language Interpreter Alan Champion combines his performing skills with his sign language background to interpret live theatre. He stresses the importance of being a good listener, and concentrating on the immediate performance rather than the original script. He explains the unique circumstances in interpretting the new revival of The Miracle Worker. Champion discusses how his career developed, and the personal and professional significance of the 1980 Tony Award winning play Children of a Lesser God.
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Going into this video, I was very interested to hear Alan's comments on when the signing should cease in a very physical show, like he described with Miracle Worker. I had the opportunity to see a signed performance of Noises Off, an incredibly busy bedroom farce, and I noticed that during the busiest segments, the interpreter only offered the sparsest of dialogue chunks. Hearing from Alan, I understand that in those segments, the dialogue was far less important than seeing the actors running around like mad on stage. However, in the clip from Shrek, I noticed an LED screen displaying supertitles of the dialogue. Would this be the direction in which shows are heading? You don't get emotion like you would from a human interpreter, but there are less issues with delaying the signing so that people are looking at the right time - if the board has 2-3 lines on it, there's more of a safety net.
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