Theater of Deaf brings classic tale to life with energy and vitality

Last night’s squally rainstorm was a fitting scene for the National Theatre of the Deaf performance of “Treasure Island” at the Maine Center for the Arts. A stalwart audience battled the relentless downpour to watch a fascinating collaboration of sign language and spoken language relaying a treasured tale of greed, love, friendship, and one boy’s rite of passage.

A troupe of less than a dozen actors, assisted by a talented technical crew, used a minimum of set pieces and props to recreate the onboard drama of Jim Hawkins, his search for Treasure Island, and his lessons about the unpredictability of life.

In the hands of deaf actor Camille L. Jeter, who played young Jim, the boy came to life with exciting energy as he told us of his adventure with Long John Silver, a band of ferocious pirates, and the betraying Squire Trelawney. Jeter presented Jim with such a bright-eyed and striking fullness that viewers young and old were surely inspired to dream of faraway islands and romance on the high seas. Jeter’s most insightful presentation, however, was in the final moments of the play when, as Jim, she asks a most important question about Silver’s character: “How can a man be so evil and honorable at the same time?” It is the question that marks Jim’s initiation to adulthood, and one that we all are likely to encounter at some point in our own journeys.

“Treasure Island” is rich with countless literary nuggets of gold, but the true glory of last night’s show was the mixture of sign language and spoken word. The coming together of these two forms of communication infused the performance with an engrossing beauty. The poetic and expressive physicality of the actors offered an unusual visual treat. Each move became vital, and each actor performed with first-rate attentiveness.

As an ensemble, the Theatre of the Deaf is truly among the most impressive as each performer is finely tuned into every motion on stage. It is unlikely that viewers will soon forget the roguish grin of Mike Lamitola as Silver, or the amazingly expressive narration and balladeering by Kymberli Colbourne and Chris Tolliver.

But whether waving flags, rolling barrels, blasting cannons, or spilling jewels in the hold of a mightily masted ship, this crew sculpted a captivating story. The eye and the ear took in the dull, ominous boom of the surf hitting the rocks around the mysterious, fog-shrouded island. We saw and heard the yo-ho-hoing of rum-soaked sailors and the cackling of Long John Silver’s pugnacious parrot.