Translator: Rhonda Jacobs Reviewer: Denise RQ
It's a very great personal pleasure for me seeing you seated here in the theater
that is the home of the only deaf-blind theater company in the world.
Nalaga'at, in Hebrew, means 'do touch.'
It's like a lot of stories in life, a story of coincidence.
My background is theater.
I never met a deaf or blind or deaf-blind person in my life.
Very often I was asked, "Would you please give a workshop for disabled people?"
and I always said, very politely, no.
And then someone asked me, "Would you give a workshop for deaf-blind people?"
And I don't know what made me say yes, but I said yes.
Maybe it was the reason I asked, "When would you like to start?"
And they said, "After the holidays."
And after the holidays in Israel is something that never comes.
You know, if you don't want to do anything,
just say, "After the holidays."
But it was tricky because after the holidays actually came.
I found myself driving to the social club for deaf-blind people
and really cursing, "Why do I need that?"
And as I said, I never met a deaf person, I never met a blind person,
certainly not a deaf-blind person.
The only deaf person I know is my husband and this is a different kind of deafness.
(Laughter)
And...
(Applause)
So I came to this social place -
usually you go into a place, you make an entrance,
people see you, people hear you.
Here I come in - nothing.
Deaf-blind people all over the place, someone gave me coffee.
And I had this romantic idea that blind people know their way around,
I put my cup on the floor, and the next thing, someone stood on it.
So, I said, OK, I'll go outside for a cigarette.
I know it's not popular to smoke, I quit a lot.
And I took my cigarette, and a deaf-blind person comes and lights my cigarette.
So I say, it's not only that they're deaf-blind,
they're also lying.
And then someone explained to me, no, it's not like that.
Most of the deaf-blind people have Usher Syndrome.
Usher Syndrome means that the person is born deaf or hard-of-hearing,
and from about the age of 12 loses his eyesight, it gets tunnel vision,
until it closes completely.
And then, because they grow up in the deaf community,
they know how to sign,
but when they're blind they still would know how to sign,
but they don't see what people are signing,
So if I would say "great" in Hebrew Sign Language,
if you're deaf-blind, you would need to put your hand on my hand,
and just follow me.
So go and do theater with a group of people
that their biggest problem is communication,
and theater is about communication.
And I started to work with them.
I had no idea, because I was looking up on the internet,
'what happens in the deaf-blind theater world, ' and nothing.
There's a lot of deaf theater, a lot of blind theater,
no deaf-blind theater,
which means we had the privilege to invent the wheel.
And we started to work and I really loved the work,
and I thought I was-
yeah, I thought I was almost a genius, the way I worked,
and about four months after that, one of the deaf-blind persons, actors,
came to me and said,
"You know, I think this is really stupid what we are doing here,
but really stupid."
And so I asked him, "Why?"
And he said, "What is all this pantomime?"
And then I asked, "But what would you like to do?"
And he said to me, "Golki.
He's a Russian cultural snob besides being deaf-blind."
And I asked him, "But how do you want to do Golki?
You don't speak. You don't hear. You don't see."
And he said to me, "This is your problem, you're the director."
(Laughter)
So, yeah, it's my problem, it's right, it's my problem.
But then I told him,
"It's your problem that you're deaf-blind,
and let's go and work."
And we started to work, I think not do Golki,
we started to work on their dreams,
and most of the dreams are very similar to our dreams,
like one dreams to be a famous singer,
one dreams to be rich,
so rich that they could invite the most beautiful woman
to the most expensive restaurant in the world.
One dreams that he would get up in the morning and just see again,
and one did not understand my question.
I asked him, "What is your dream?"
And he kept answering me, "I have no work"
- this is work in-
"I have no work, I have no work..."
I said, "Yeah, I understand, but what is your dream?"
It went on like this for months.
And one day I come, I ask him, "What is your dream?"
And he said, "I would like to drive a car."
So I told him "OK."
I mean, this is the stage, you don't have to drive a car, you can drive a bus.
And this was the closing scene in our first show.
And Gadi the bus driver, and told all the other actors
"You get on the bus the way you want to get on the bus,"
so one gets on pregnant, one gets on reading a newspaper,
one gets in with a Walkman, one steals the purse of the driver,
and one gets in limping.
And I ask him, "Yuri, why do you limp?"
And he said, "What do you mean? I want a discount."
(Laughter)
So, I thought, you know,
if you're deaf, blind, not workable, and you need to limp
in order to get a discount on the bus, we are the right way.
(Laughter)
(Applause)
So our first show, Light is Heard in Zig Zag,
was received with very great enthusiasm.
In Israel, it was described as the most surprising hit of Israeli theater.
And then we started to tour,
we toured in Toronto, Montreal, Boston, New York,
Zurich Schauspielhaus,
UN in Geneva and came back home,
started to dream about our home for ourselves,
and started to look around.
And then we found this place, a warehouse - no electricity, no water.
And we said, "We like it. We really do like it."
We renovated it, and we opened this place for the public in December 2007.
So just let's assume you would be here
on a regular day that the Nalaga'at Center is open.
You would see now a show, Not by Bread Alone,
performed by 11 deaf-blind actors.
During the show you would smell the smell of bread
because they're making bread on stage,
and then you would come up to the actors and communicate with the actors,
eat the bread that was baking,
and then you would go out to Cafe Kapish with the deaf waiters.
You would order a light meal
and also communicate with the waiters beyond the spoken word,
and I'm sure you would find a way because we see this happen every day.
And then maybe you would have a great meal in our dark restaurant, Blackout,
and our blind waiters would escort you
to a very special meal in complete darkness.
Over 120,000 people visited this place since we opened,
getting, I think, the gift of art, but also getting the gift of knowing
that there really is no limit to human spirit.
So we have a routine, we work really hard,
and we are close to over 70% of self-income which I think is unheard of
for people that do "regular" theater.
And we continue to dream,
knowing that this place should not be a museum,
this place has to have a dream,
and learning, thinking and doing should be part of our routine.
We opened a new group of deaf-blind people.
Some of our deaf and blind [waiters] get training as actors.
And we have a new children's show - four deaf waiters, two blind waiters,
just think how they can communicate.
It's an amazing and it's a crazy journey.
Over 70 deaf or blind or deaf-blind people work in this place,
knowing that everyone has the right to get the duty to give to society
and be part of society.
Making it less important, we work together,
Christians, Jews and Muslims, knowing that we can have and deserve
to change the reality for all of us.
Thank you very much.
(Applause)
(Laughter)
(Applause)
(Laughter)
(Audience) Ahhh.
(Applause)
(Laughter)
(Applause)
(Laughter)
(Applause)