Wednesday, February 22, 2012

A Deaf Actor Finds a Rich Role Off-Broadway

The role of Billy in the new off-Broadway play “Tribes” presents a rich vein for an actor: a deaf adult child confronts hearing parents who have shunned sign language and most of deaf culture, insisting instead that their son rely on lip-reading and at times fragmented speech.

Russell Harvard plays the part in the bitterly comic British family drama by playwright Nina Raine starting previews this week at the Barrow Street Theatre in New York.

Harvard, a 30-year-old Texas native who is deaf, grew up with sign language and uses it in the play. Harvard also speaks in the role—though he has learned a British accent for the part.

The actor, who played Daniel Day-Lewis’s grown son in the 2007 film “There Will Be Blood,” mostly has portrayed deaf characters on screen. In the 2010 independent movie “The Hammer,” he played the lead role of a deaf wrestler. “Tribes,” which received a 2011 Olivier Award nomination for best play in London, is his third professional stage role.

Read more of Ellen Gamerman's The Wall Street Journal article HERE.

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