Beneath its surface as a comedy about two Deaf roommates’ escalating argument about who should take out the garbage, “Trash” offers entrée for hearing theatergoers into the world of the Deaf. The play, written by James Caverly and Andrew Morrill, is performed almost entirely in American Sign Language, but it’s made accessible for those who don’t know ASL in some inspired ways. And as we learn more about the two main characters, portrayed by Caverly and Morrill themselves, we are made privy to some of the complicated challenges and resentments of Deaf people in their interactions/collisions with the hearing world.

Jake (James Caverly) and Tim (Andrew Morrill) seem to spend the entire day arguing with one another. Some of their back-and-forth in ASL is not directly interpreted into English, but the audience is clued-in to what they’re discussing by their use of two small white boards. Sometimes they write short messages on the boards; sometimes they use them to poll the audience. “Is cereal healthy?” Jake writes on his board during the first such argument, over breakfast, with a “no” inside a red square and a “yes” inside a yellow square. Each audience member holds up the cardboard square we’ve been given, either showing the red side or the yellow side. 

Much of the time their ASL conversation is directly interpreted into spoken English, which happens when one of them puts money into an old jukebox, portrayed suavely and persuasively by Chris Ogren.

Tim and Jake’s argument about taking out the trash is the most elaborate, and the most revealing. Some of this is because they wind up emptying out the trash can and sorting through its contents piece by piece to determine who has the larger share. One of the items unearthed is a Playbill; Jake comments: “I attended the show the other night and the interpreters were terrible….I’m tired of having hearing people decide for me what my accessibility needs should be.”   But the very reason the argument begins is telling: Jake is fed up with taking out the trash every day for weeks because Tim is wearing an ankle monitor. Tim’s house arrest is the result of a run-in with a policer officer who out of ignorance about Deaf people misread Tim’s behavior.

The scene between Tim and the police officer (Vishal Vaidya) is dramatized as a flashback. So are several other scenes that illustrate interactions with hearing people. The most memorable is the date that Jake goes on with Carly (Rebecca Spigelman, who gives an outrageous comic performance,) She is a video blogger who sees herself as a Deaf ally, though others might think she has a fetish; her reasons are certainly unique: She will only date Deaf guys because she is such a extreme screamer during sex that anybody who can hear thinks she’s being murdered.  Tim holds up his white board for the audience, having scrawled: “Jake dates only hearies.” He clearly doesn’t approve; we learn later that when a Deaf person dates a hearing person, their dates together are lessons in humiliation; the maitre d’ will talk to the hearing person as if the Deaf person is a dog. We also meet Tim and Jake’s landlord Nicolas (again Vaidya) who tells them that the neighbors downstairs keep on complaining that Tim and Jake make too much noise.

It emerges that the central disagreement between Jake and Tim is over the differing approaches the two take towards all these difficulties that hearing people create for the Deaf. Jake makes a good living as an account manager for a video relay service. Tim teaches a few classes of ASL, but relies on government support. 
“You choose to sit at home all day playing video games, living off of SSI with no goals or ambition,” Jake tells Tim.
“For a hearing company that profits off of Deaf people.”
“So it’s better to be like you? Perpetuating a stereotype that Deaf people are dumb and lazy?”
“There are no ‘better opportunities’ for Deaf people in a hearing world.”
They vigorously sign, while the Jukebox rapidly interprets.

“Trash” has a plot with several strands, a number of surprises and a couple of meta-theatrical touches, involving all five cast members; much of what unfolds is determined  by the audience voting (via the red/yellow cards) at crucial crossroads.  It’s a lot to take in; maybe too much. That may be the point; the message that Caverly and Morrill most want to make: Look how much the Deaf have to deal with. If “Trash” is eye-opening for hearing audiences, it is also likely one of the few entertainments that Deaf people can enjoy without compromise. Captions are provided whenever the hearing characters speak in English. Even the music and the sound effects are captioned.

Trash
PAC NYC through March 28
By James Caverly and Andrew Morrill
Directed by Nathaniel P. Claridad 
Scenic design by Suzu Sakai, costume design  by Nikolya Sereda , properties design by Ellie Brown, lighting design by Annie Wiegand, sound design by Howard Ho, projection design by Taylor Edelle Stuart,   intimacy and fight direction by Kimi Handa Brown , director of Artistic Sign Language Kailyn Aaron-Lozano 
Cast: James Caverly as Jake, Andrew Morrill as Tim, Chris Ogren as ‘Jukebox’, Rebecca Spigelman as ‘Carly’ and Vishal Vaidya as ‘Nicolas / Police Officer.’

Photos by Rebecca J Michelson