Review: Barrier(s) at Home Theatre Manchester

“…important, insightful, impactful and, above all, simply beautiful…”

Barrier(s) by Eloise Pennycott, Home Theatre Manchester

By Hannah Molyneux

Before the lights go down, two strangers in the row behind me strike up a conversation about theatre and British Sign Language (BSL). They’ve come to see the show alone but through it (and before it has even started) they’ve connected with each other in a shared experience. It is a touching example of theatre bringing people together and is a great part of what makes this play such a success.

Barrier(s), by deaf playwright Eloise Pennycott, is a love story that follows the highs and lows faced by Katie and Alana – a deaf and hearing couple – as they navigate their lives together. It’s sincere, charming and very sweetly funny. Zoe McWhinney as Katie and Em Prendergast as Alana give such heartfelt and warm performances that the audience can’t help but fall in love with them too. Alana is endearingly worrisome while Katie is romantic and idealistic, creating an almost Tony-and-Maria-like impression of their love against the world. Theirs is a dream world, each moment taking place against a backdrop of colourful images that set the scene. The simplicity of the set and scenery allows the story to shine and expression to take centre stage.

Almost entirely signed with a handful of spoken lines, Barrier(s) is captioned, although the expressiveness of the signing says more than the captions ever could. If the play’s aim is to demonstrate that signing is not inferior to speech, as Katie alludes to more than once, then it does this perfectly – a testament to the beauty of life in sign language. In the absence of spoken words, facial expressions and gestures are everything, and McWhinney and Prendergast give a masterclass in just how much can be communicated in a raised eyebrow or a tilt of the head. It is tender, nuanced and movingly intimate.

However, it is not too gentle in the way it tackles inequality, with depictions of ableism drawing gasps from the seats around me. Barrier(s) approaches disability issues in a real-life and personal way, showing us the impact they have on the characters we have grown to love, so that the disparity between hearing and deaf is blatant and bleak. The challenges that Katie and Alana face accumulate during the course of the play so that, by the end, they seem to be facing adversity on all sides. This perhaps explains the unusual ending, in which trauma is rejected in favour of “Deaf pride” and a celebration of Deaf culture and community. It won’t suit everyone, as it leaves Katie and Alana’s story dangling, but this seems as much a comment on the nature of life and relationships and their lack of neat, safe conclusions as it is a change of focus from despair to defiance. Barrier(s) leaves us with a final juxtaposition of hardship and hope and we almost don’t need to find out exactly what happens to Katie and Alana to know that, whatever it is, they will weather it together.

This is truly a show for the Deaf community, which is not to say that it can’t be enjoyed and appreciated by a hearing audience (because it absolutely can), but instead that deafness pervades everything that the characters encounter. It underpins the barriers that they face but it is also the source of their joy, hope and aspirations. For Pennycott to capture all of that life – and, in doing so, represent the community to which she belongs – in a piece of art, is important, insightful, impactful and, above all, simply beautiful.

Barrier(s) plays at Home Theatre Manchester until Saturday 08 November. Tickets are available here.

Hannah Molyneux is a proudly Mancunian writer and musician whose day job revolves around community engagement. She is passionate about community arts and the huge benefits they have for people and places. Hannah can most often be found enjoying the great outdoors or optimistically crafting with her children. You can read more of her writing here. You can find her on Instagram here.