Torn between sound and sign

If you were the parents of a deaf child, many people would suppose you would take advantage of any medical advancement that could help that child to hear. But what if you were deaf yourself? Would you resent the idea of giving your child access to the hearing world just because that world insists it's superior? And how jealously would you guard your child's identity as a member of the deaf community?

This them and us mentality is at the centre of Playing God, a new play from Deafinitely Theatre that features deaf and non-deaf actors and which incorporates speech and sign language to tell a tug of war love story over a deaf child.

John and Emma, both deaf, have no qualms about how to bring up their young deaf daughter Ruby until Emma meets ear surgeon Alex. He gradually persuades Emma that Ruby has to have a cochlear implant if she is to stand any chance of developing her speech, much to the fury of John.

In examining the ensuing conflict, Rebecca Atkinson's somewhat simplistic script houses two fundamentalist points of view. Alex's messianic belief in cochlear implants and the desire to eliminate deafness completely verges alarmingly on ideas about physical purity (and he is caricatured by Peter Abraham as a bit of a megalomaniac). Meanwhile John, who was virtually disowned by his hearing family, prefers to define himself in direct opposition to the hearing world, rather than alongside it.

Paula Garfield's production feels rather stilted (the use of soft toys to represent young children is particularly unsatisfactory) and too often resembles a staged debate. Atkinson also needs to dig much deeper into her characters to avoid them feeling like little more than mouthpieces.

The rather extreme ending could do with more psychological upholstery to make it convincing, too. Nonetheless, the parallel - and effective - use of signed and spoken language neatly embodies the idea that deafness and hearing should, and can, complement each other. It's also a neat dramatic device that raises associated and pertinent questions about what actually constitutes language.

Playing God
Soho Theatre
Dean Street, W1D 3NE