Call to Adventure: The life and times of Francis Maginn – a tale of historical language injustice which still resonates today (c21 Theatre on tour)

Paperwork and files from a building are being cleared. The boss is not impressed when he discovers a woman hoking through the kerbside skip recovering items. The papers and photographs relate to the work of Francis Maginn, a missionary and teacher who became deaf due to scarlet fever aged five. What starts out as an unfriendly tussle opens out into a conversation that opens his eyes and his ears to a fascinating piece of largely hidden history.

Call to Adventure: The life and times of Francis Maginn tells the story of a deaf man who fought for sign language to be recognised and valued in Britain and Ireland. Sign language was banned from schools at the 1880 Milan Congress in favour of – to use the now-outdated vocabulary of the time – “deaf and deaf mute people” using “pure oralism”. Maginn realises that “the suppression of sign teaches deceit” and doesn’t not make the valuable way of communicating go away.

The story follows Maginn as he bounces between Britain, Ireland, America and France. His experiences lead to lobbying and he proposes the creation of the British Deaf And Dumb Association … and is suitably appalled when a hearing man is appointed as the first chair. Along the way, Alexander Graham Bell’s work to promote oralism is critiqued: the inventor of the telephone’s mother was deaf and his wife lost her hearing as a child due to scarlet fever. Yet Bell feared that deaf people socialising together and marrying each other would breed a “deaf race”, something that would be less likely if communication was always spoken and never signed.

Directors Stephen Kelly and Lisa Kelly give the biographical story plenty of heart, and while some conversations necessarily require performers to face the audience so their signing is visible, the death of a close friend of Maginn’s is delivered by the cast as an emotionally impactful moment. Mark Revels-Barker’s set transforms the yellow skip from the opening scene into many different locations.

Supported by Paula Clarke and Eoghan Lamb who multi-role throughout the one-act play, Jamie Rea very ably plays Maginn, conveying the warmth and perseverance of the central character. The cast confidently switch between roles and languages.

Maginn believed that the deaf community should be “free to communicate not conform”. c21 Theatre’s production embodies those values with an ambitious performance that makes the telling of its story equally accessible for deaf and hearing audiences. There’s a beautiful balance to how the script by Charis McRoberts and Paula Clarke is brought to life. A mix of speech, signing (mostly by the characters, though Seamus Henry steps on stage at various points to interpret some speeches), voiceovers, projected subtitles and gestures make sure that everyone can follow what’s happening.

Call to Adventure is a timely history lesson and story of fighting injustice to share while the Northern Ireland Assembly is currently examining the Sign Language Bill. (The bill completed its consideration stage just before the Assembly broke for Easter.)

I attended the packed opening night performance in the Lyric Theatre and was back in the same venue watching a different show the following evening. It was heart-warming on both evenings to see the c21 Theatre audience spilling out into the theatre foyer and bar, with as many silent signed conversations happening as spoken ones.

Call to Adventure’s handling of language reminded me of two older theatre experiences (which were less accessible but still enjoyable). Aisling Ghéar’s production of Dave Duggan’s play Makaronik (reviewed) in the 2014 Belfast Festival was performed with three quarters of its dialogue in Irish, the rest in English and Empirish (a language made up by the playwright with its roots in Orwell’s Newspeak/1984 and pidgin English). Knowing Irish would have made the storytelling much richer, but the brief explanatory surtitles kept the story flowing. And back in 2018, I watched a Serbian play with Macedonia surtitles based on a Danish film with zero English in a North Macedonian international theatre festival. Not everything happening on the stage is about the words: otherwise it would just be visualised radio!

c21’s commitment to telling high quality stories that include a diverse range of characters through highly accessible performances is to be applauded. Audiences will watch opera performed in its original language. So why not plays that are signed? Hopefully their work along with a small number of other local theatre companies will boost the number of playwrights, actors, directors and creatives from the deaf community making work on Northern Ireland stages and beyond.

Call to Adventure: The life and times of Francis Maginn is currently touring through Courtyard Theatre, Newtownabbey (Friday 10 April), The Old Church, Cushendun (Saturday 11), Market Place Theatre, Armagh (Thursday 30), Island Arts Centre, Lisburn (Friday 1 May) and Down Arts Centre (Saturday 2 May).

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