Deaf Republic
At a puppet show in a town square, a deaf boy is shot dead by a soldier for not responding to his commands. The next day the whole town wakes up deaf or pretending to be. This play at the Royal Court is based on the 2019 book length poem by Ukranian poet Ilya Kaminsky. Using signing, spoken and written word, it's also a multimedia work, making use of cameras and projection, puppetry and even a drone hovering intimidatingly over the audience at one point. The set is deceptively simple in design, with the puppet stage staying central whilst other elements and the cast move around it. The sound design is excellent too, with white noise and low rumbling sounds, sometimes blurred speech, evoking a tiny bit of the deaf experience. It sounds as if it will be bitty, but it does come together in something of a poetic tapestry. This is a complicated play, a fable, with layer upon layer of metaphor and allegory, and despite light and moving moments, ...