run of seven weeks. The play is personal and autobiographical. I waited to write it until most of the key characters – my mother and father, Uncle Louie, Aunt Mag and her husband Carl – were safely dead. With them not around to take issue with – or possibly feel hurt by – the way I portrayed them, I had the freedom and license to write about them as honestly and fully as I could. Writing “Just a Song at Twilight” was a cathartic and rewarding experience. Not only was I finally able to tell a long-held, deeply-felt story, the response from audiences and critics was heartwarming. The Tolucan Times, for example, called the play “a thoughtful, compassionate look at hearing impairment and changing family dynamics.” Even more meaningful, to me, was the comment of a deaf person who attended the opening-night performance. He sat in the front row, following the action by virtue of his remarkable skill as a lip-reader. After the curtain came down, he sought me out and, with tears in his eyes, thanked me for the play. “It was touching, true and beautiful,” he said. “I’m coming back to see it again.” My only regret is that the production’s tight budget did not allow for signers to be hired to interpret the show for the larger deaf community in Los Angeles. Not being able to reach out to them was disappointing, but perhaps that will be remedied the next time the play is produced. In the meantime, I will have to be satisfied with the knowledge that I have brought my mother and aunt to life again as vibrantly and faithfully as I could, and that I have paid tribute to those courageous and remarkable women – and to
every other person with hearing loss who has walked in their shoes. ■
Willard Manus is not only a much-produced playwright but a journalist and novelist as well. His best-known books are This Way to Paradise – Dancing on the Tables, a memoir of the 35 years he lived in the Greek islands, and Mott the Hoople, the novel from which the 1970s British rock band took its name. Manus publishes Lively Arts, an Internet cultural magazine at www.lively-arts.com.
New Releases The Artificial Ear: Cochlear Implants and the Culture of Deafness by Stuart Blume ©2010 Rutgers University Press, Paperback $29.95, 240 pp., ISBN 9780813546605 Through an analysis of scientific and clinical literature, The Artificial Ear reconstructs the history of cochlear implants from their conceptual origins in the 1930s, to the first attempt at implantation in Paris in the 1950s, to their widespread clinical use today. Part ethnography and part historical study, The Artificial Ear is based on interviews with researchers who were pivotal in the early development and implementation of implant technology. Recommended for hearing healthcare professionals.
32 HEARING HEALTH A PUBLICATION OF THE DEAFNESS RESEARCH FOUNDATION
Advanced Sign Language Vocabulary: Raising Expectations, A Resource Text for Educators, Interpreters, Parents, and Sign Language Instructors by Janet Renee Coleman and Elizabeth England Wolf ©2009 Charles C. Thomas, Publisher, Ltd. Spiral bound, $39.95, 208 pp. ISBN 9780398079017 Don’t look for Apple, Ball or Cat in this sign language dictionary. With an emphasis on courtroom, medical and educational vocabularies, one will find words like Alcoholic, Bibliography and Circumcise in this simply illustrated volume. The table of contents reads like a high school student’s class schedule, including chapters on English, social studies, science, mathematics, health and more. A good resource for parents whose ASL vocabulary has been outsmarted by their high school-aged signing children. ■