Theatre: Not by Bread Alone

Created and directed by Adina Tal
With the Nalaga’at Deaf-Blind Theatre Ensemble
Original music by Amnon Baaham
Performed by the actors and translators of the Nalaga’at Deaf-Blind Theatre
Regal Theatre
Until February 12

Not by Bread Alone, performed by 11 actors from Israel’s Nalaga’at Deaf-Blind Theatre,  is a production so unusual in both content and purpose that it resists the function of a critic. It alters the usual shape and direction of the transaction between the performer and the audience in a way that defies judgement.

The fundamental line of the performance is “Welcome to our lives, to our darkness, to our silence”. The horror of loneliness, of frustration and grief it conjures up is overwhelming. Imagining what this dark, silent world must be like is impossible, like imagining death.
But, as Not by Bread Alone convincingly shows, that is far from the truth. Rather, the truth lies in the start of Hanina’s welcome, because these people do have lives, and dreams and ambitions (some also have seeing, hearing children), and they have the courage – and this production has the skill – to invite us in to share them.

Link here to the complete review in The West Australian