Dublin Theatre Festival 2025: Deaf Republic

Deaf Republic by Dead Centre. Image, Johan Persson

***

Like Dublin Theatre Festival, Deaf Republic is all about the -ity. Minority. Visibility. Inclusivity. Accessibility. Directed by Bush Moukarzel and Ben Kidd, adapted from the poetry book by Ukranian-American writer Ilya Kaminsky by Dead Centre and sign language poet Zoë McWhinney, we follow the inhabitants of Vasenka who collectively wake up deaf following the shooting of a deaf boy at a puppet show. Killed for not following an order to disperse which he could not hear. His death impacting on young couple, Alfonso and Sonya, about to have their first child, and a brothel madame and her female sex workers who seduce soldiers and kill them in acts of violent resistance. A story which supplies a through line on which are hung interrogations of deafness, occupying forces and acts of resistance. The production framed as a special performance for the hearing. Didactic in intent, condescending in tone, Deaf Republic proves technically scrumptious. Something to visually admire, but can often leave you feeling uninvolved.

Given this is Dead Centre you can be sure of at least one crucial -ity; theatricality. Or, rather, a multi-disciplinary meta-theatricality. Self consciously deconstructed into snowstorms and aerial routines; blood squibs and a military jeep; a stage within a stage, and a stage within a stage within a screen; puppets enhanced by camera like a 1970s children’s program; surveillance drones capturing images of the audience; a gauze screen over much of the action so it’s viewed as if through cataracts, visually muffled rather than clear. Then there’s the use of signing and the sporadic use of surtitles. A masterpiece set by Jeremy Herbert, superb lighting by Azusa Ono, brilliant video direction by Grant Gee, superb costumes by Mae Leahy, and excellent composition and sound by Kevin Gleeson foreground tech as being Deaf Republic’s primary artists. Supported by a strong human cast in Romel Belcher, Caoimhe Coburn Gray, Derbhle Crotty, Kate Finegan, Eoin Gleeson, Lisa Kelly and Dylan Tonge Jones who inject life into a parade of visual gimmicks and special effects. Yet a bath scene in the occupied war zone between Alfonso and Sonya catching a fleeting moment between baby cries and flying bullets, or a video of Sonya’s expressive face convey something lost to tunnelling through eardrums or read my lips close ups. A reverse dichotomy achieved. The effects ultimately looking prosaic, the people poetry. Still, next time AI might have something to say on that front if Tilly Norwood is anything to go by.

Deaf Republic by Dead Centre. Image, Johan Persson

Deaf Republic claims theatre is about bringing us together to better understand. To understand the experiences of living in a besieged country. Of being deaf. Or the demands of living with both and of living through horrors without an end in sight. Nice ideals, all achieved, except we were never brought together to understand. Less an interrogation of a theatre of war, this is theatre as war. Theatre designed to influence, sway and persuade its audience of a system of values represented as objectively justified. Which is not to say resistance to the unjustifiable invasion of Ukraine, or the horrors in Gaza, or the struggles of deaf people, add you own, do not need to be vigorously contested. The issues addressed in Deaf Republic are vitally important. It’s a question of theatre’s claims and function. Theatre is never neutral when weaponised for political ends. It is not accessible nor inclusive of all. Theatre does not unite, it divides. Striving to be politically engaged it risks disconnecting us from people and issues for seeing people as issues. Disconnecting us from theatre itself. No longer a cultural act to be viewed and shared, but a political act designed to manipulate the gaze of the viewer.

People reduced to politics. Theatre reduced to politics. Art justified or vilified by politics. Theatre can do politics well. It can also do much more than that. When it’s not, the question should always be whose politics, and who’s pulling what strings? Because rest assured, strings are very much being pulled.

Deaf Republic, directed by Bush Moukarzel and Ben Kidd, adapted from the poetry book by Ukranian-American writer Ilya Kaminsky by Dead Centre and sign language poet Zoë McWhinney, presented by Dead Centre & Royal Court Theatre runs at The Samuel Beckett Theatre as part of Dublin Theatre Festival 2025 until October 5.

For more information visit Dublin Theatre Festival 2025