Disclaimer: Don't own the rights to Jonathan Larson's "RENT"
A/N: After listening to "RENT" (what feels like the 100th time), my friends and I came to the conclusion that RENT could be rewritten to fit a story about language and cultural identity in the Deaf community, "Bohemia" replaced with the deaf culture and "Calcutta" with Oralism. This story now takes place at California State University, Northridge (one of the Big Three deaf-friendly universities after RIT (Rochester Inst. Of Tech) and Gallaudet University. It is a story about eight friends living in the Deaf Dorm during the dawn of the new millennium. The theme of AIDS has been replaced with CI (cochlear implants – the killers of the Deaf culture) The idea of Cyberland has been retained – CyberArts replaced by Sorenson, the video relay company that steals interpreters from the traditional educational setting and relocating them to a TV screen interpreting service, which they are protesting to.
CHARACTERS: (I have retained the original names to make it easier to identify who is who)
ROGER: A deaf person raised in Cued Speech (a phonetic-based sign system) and sports a cochlear implant – considers himself "Hearing"
MIMI: Deaf, raised in Total Communication (signing and speaking simultaneously) and wears a cochlear implant as well but considers herself a member of the Deaf community.
ANGEL: A CODA (Child of a Deaf Adult) Angel was raised by Deaf parents and her native language is ASL instead of English even though she can hear fine and considers herself a member of the Deaf community. (I have decided to keep Angel a cross-dresser for the sake of die-hard fans ; )
COLLINS: A hard of hearing person raised Oral and picked up sign language later in life – losing his hearing rapidly (and will get a cochlear implant later on in the play)
MARK: A SODA (A sibling of a Deaf Adult), Mark has a deaf sibling and knows ASL enough to communicate with his friends. He is an aspiring filmmaker, set to document Deaf history and considers it his obligation to partake in the community on account of his sibling.
MAUREEN: A capital-D-Deaf individual, Maureen is a die-hard supporter of ASL and is intent on ensuring the Deaf rights of herself and others, especially with the protest against Sorenson VRS.
JOANNE: A hearing Deaf-Studies major with a concentration in Law and the Deaf, does some side interpreting outside of classes – fluent in ASL, and a supporter of the Deaf culture.
BENNY: a hearing Deaf-Studies major with a concentration in the medical aspect of deafness (aka Alexander Graham Bell with his idea of enforcing oralism instead of manualism in the community – the 'evil-doer' of the Deaf community, so I portrayed Benny after AGB) Knows ASL to a degree but won't use it unless he absolutely has to – works for Sorenson VRS which he thinks would improve the Deaf community and supports cochlear implantation. He is against ASL as a mode of communication.
I have chosen to follow the movie order for the time being but later I plan to revise it back to the original libretto format. Voice interpreters provided for Roger, Mimi, Maureen, and Collins. Benny, Joanne, and Mark will use sim-com (speaking/signing at the same time). A voice interpreter will be provided for Angel, depending on her lines/lyrics.
SIGN: The Musical
Eight characters walk on single-file ontstage– setup like the movie except the lights are in front of them instead of behind them in order to see them signing. Voice interpreters form a second line behind them with 'windows' between. The eight in front start to sign, starting small and building up emotional levels to full-out gospel-style signing. We as the audience are not supposed to notice the second line made up of voice interpreters though they are there merely for the benefit of hearing (sign impaired)audiences so they may enjoy this unique form of RENT from a new perspective.
To Signs of Love
ALL In inflection, in handshapes, direction, In five hundred twenty-five thousand How about ILY? (sing love, sign the 'ILY') To signs of love, to signs of love
Five hundred twenty-five thousand
Six hundred handsigns
Five hundred twenty-five thousand
Messages so dear
Five hundred twenty-five thousand
Six hundred handsigns
How do you measure, measure a sign?
In location,
In movement, in size, in laughter, in strife
Six hundred handsigns
How do you measure
A sign in our life?
How about ILY?
How about ILY? Measure with ILY.
JOANNE Five hundred twenty-five thousand COLLINS
Five hundred twenty-five thousand
Six hundred handsigns
Five hundred twenty-five thousand
Messages to sign
Six hundred handsigns
How do you share A-S-L
With hearing women or men?
In signs that she learned
Or the times that he tried
In gestures that he returned
Or the way that she cried?
ALL
It's time to sign out
Tho the culture never ends
Let's celebrate
Remember a sign in the times of friends
Remember the ILY!
Remember the ILY!
To signs of love!
JOANNE
Oh you got to remember the sign!
Remember the signs!
You measure with signs,
know that signs is a gift from up above
Share sign, give sign, spread sign measure
measure your words with signs!
(fade out)
SCENE: Roger and Mark's dorm room at Cal State U Northridge at night. They are doing homework- we see laptops and the usual college dorm life. We can see that Mark is practicing his sign skills for an ASL class and out of frustration, he throws the textbook down and burst into song. Roger, on the other hand, is trying to tune up his guitar but it's difficult to gauge the pitch when one is deaf. He agrees with Mark that their given methods of communication do create barriers of their own kind, even in the Deaf community on campus.
SIGN
MARK
How do we sign it right when our hands are getting more like English each
day?
Oralsim-audism – blow my mind
And now this cultural division – their way"
Sign!
ROGER
How do you cue a word when the
Hands feel wrong,
Though they once felt right and Rare?
When the fingers cramp
Where are the cue skills you once used to
Ignite the air?
MARK
And we're cramped and frozen
ROGER
Some method they've chosen
ROGER and MARK
How we gonna sign?
How we gonna sign?
How we gonna sign? A – S – L?
ROGER
How do you learn to talk when there's nothing
to hear and it feels like something's stuck in your mouth
MARK
How can you make talk
When you can't in the dark?
ROGER and MARK
And it's getting old!
MARK
You start up cultural fights
ROGER
With Audism
MARK
And deaf rights
ROGER and MARK
How we gonna sign?
How we gonna sign?
How we gonna sign? A – S – L?
(Downstage, a light shines on while hearing thugs beat up Collins and break his hearing aids)
COLLINS
How do you retain your signs when in every school
It's speech or sign and today it's speech
"Welcome back to school" I close my eyes
Everything's cool and uh-oh
I feel dumb
MARK
Where's the gain?
COLLINS
Say that again
ROGER AND MARK
How we gonna sign
(Various college students come out and line up on the balcony while others congregate on the platform - they are not interacting with either Collins or Mark/Roger. They range from Deaf, Hard of Hearing, Hearing people majoring in Deaf Studies but know sign, deaf people with cochlear implants, CODAs, SODAs, etc.)
STUDENTS
How we gonna sign
How we gonna sign
R, M, STUDENTS
A – S – L
MARK
"The fingers ignites the night with passionate fire"
ROGER
"the language crackles and pops with incendiary wit"
MARK
Zoom in as they destroy the deaf culture
ROGER AND MARK
And feel the heat of the future's glow
How do you leave English behind
When it keeps finding ways to get to your hands?
It reaches way down deep and tears you inside out
Til you're torn apart
Sign!
R, M, STUDENTS
How can you connect in an age
With the Deaf, hearing, Codas
Your sign skills betray
What keeps the culture intact
When the new technology of advance
keep ripping away!
(Benny walks on stage and stands in the center while the others notice his presence and throw insults at him in sign language as they know that Benny, even though he is a Deaf Studies major, he is not an ally of the Deaf community.)
BENNY
Draw a line in the sand
And then make a stand
ROGER
Use your fingers to spar
MARK
Use your guitar
STUDENTS
When they act tough – you call their bluff
ROGER AND MARK
We're not gonna sign
ROGER, MARK and STUDENTS
We're not gonna sign
We're not gonna sign
S – E – E! P – S – E!
M – C – E!
Sign sign sign sign sign
We're not gonna sign those!
Cause everything is SIGN!
(Lights dim - new chapter coming soon)
(SEE (Signed Exact English), PSE (Pidgin Signed English), MCE (Manually Coded English) are various English-based sign system and they are referring to "cause everything is sign" means no matter what language or method a deaf child is reared on, be it Oralism, Signed English, ASL, Cued Speech, etc they all end up signing ASL in the end)