The day before our interview, in a third-floor studio decked out like a 1990s school gym, I get a brief glimpse of actor Nadia Nadarajah in action. It’s just gone 2pm, late in this unique production of Antony & Cleopatra’s third rehearsal week of four. Opening night is just weeks away, next door in the 1,500 capacity Shakespeare’s Globe. Printouts line the walls: sketches of costumes; history factsheets; headshots of the 50+ strong on and off-stage team. Collectively, theirs is a grand ambition: to bring, for the first time, a bilingual English/British Sign Language production to the main stage in a major British theatre for a full-length run for deaf and hearing audiences alike. Its cast of 14 are split near equally between hearing and deaf. Those backstage, too, are working in both languages. It’s no small feat.
“I always said,” Nadarajah tells me, 24 hours later, “if we were to do a play like this, it would need to be 50/50 between a hearing and deaf cast. I wanted to develop a process where both languages were equal: not only deaf actors learning how to collaborate with hearing actors, but it working the other way, too.”
Back in the rehearsal room, all present gather around their barefoot director, Blanche McIntyre. She’s flanked by three BSL interpreters, here to keep dialogue free-flowing between her cast and crew. Alongside design and tech staff are a set of specialists: sign language consultants and caption designers. After a short pep talk, the stage is set for a scene run-through. As Nadarajah – who is deaf and talks solely in BSL – performs, I watch on, the room in total silence. Without uttering a single sound, her Cleopatra commands the stage.
Now, we’re sitting in a private room inside the theatre’s administrative offices. Through its large window is a vista of the Thames, and, beyond it, the dome of St Paul’s. Fresh from a photoshoot, Nadarajah has traded the patterned fashion for a T-shirt and dungarees. BSL is a visual language: we’ve rearranged the furniture to keep the sun’s glare from eye lines. Nadarajah and I sit opposite each other, with Louise, our interpreter, to my side.
“With Antony & Cleopatra,” Nadarajah explains, “you start with a clash of two cultures: the Romans and Egyptians. We’re honouring that by introducing two languages to the show.” The Egyptians will use sign, Romans spoken English. Rehearsals are trilingual: modern English, BSL, Shakespearean vocab. “Within the play itself, a character might become an interpreter, as they might in any multilingual situation, relaying information to those who need it. We’re finding ways to cue that aren’t verbal. With the help of captions, we want to show how these interactions would authentically happen in the world.”
First came the translation process. “When I started acting,” she continues, “I’d have to translate scripts into BSL on my own. It was exhausting.” Not this time. Back in March, a group of cast and crew spent two weeks turning early 17th-century Shakespearean English into modern BSL. “Imagine,” Nadarajah suggests, “translating Shakespeare into French, it’s a long process: cultural differences, linguistic nuances. There’s no perfect translation, as there’s no Shakespearean sign language. Instead, we considered the meaning line by line before working out how we’d capture each in sign.”
She picks one of Cleopatra’s lines at random: “Grates me, the sum.”
“Take that phrase,” Nadarajah says, “Grates me is basically, ‘That’s annoying,’ but we have so many different ways of expressing that in sign.” She signs out a variety of wholly different gestures. “It’s annoying; that’s enough; not again; for goodness sake…” The list goes on. “We could summarise it, go literal, or be more creative. And then ‘the sum’ – meaning ‘tell me everything, quickly’ – also has its own set of options. It’s the same for every line. A quick, short sentence can prove to be hugely complex. So many choices need to be made.”
Once a sign translation is agreed, each needs logging. “I learned how to write in BSL,” she says, “even though it’s not a written language. We’ll film ourselves signing each line, before I make a written note.” Nadarajah opens a burgundy file folder, revealing her script inside. On one side of each printed page is the Shakespearean English, with contextual notes below it. Directly opposite, in her neat handwriting, sits its corresponding BSL.
Processes like this, Nadarajah explains, are key to forcing a rethink in how we see the work of disabled performers: “Yes, accessibility and representation matter, but I wanted to find a way to take interpreters, translation, captions and make them central to the process. Deaf people are involved in all aspects of this production. We’re all equal here, not an afterthought.”
Nadarajah, who is 46, lives in Peterborough with a friend, part of its thriving deaf community. “Without it,” she asks, “where would I be? Not here at the Globe. I think I’d have a small life. Unable to communicate. A job that’s unfulfilling. The deaf community ensured that wasn’t the case.” She feels the same gratitude for the deaf network she grew up with in Luton. Nadarajah’s parents, born in Sri Lanka, set up in England as young newlyweds. She’s the younger of two siblings: mum and dad are hearing; she and her brother, both deaf.
“Luckily, at that time, Luton had a strong deaf community. We went to deaf clubs; there were schools with specialist units. For my parents, with two young, deaf children, being in Luton was a lifeline.” Two generations learned BSL in tandem. The children attended a deaf nursery. “My parents went to weekly sessions where deaf adults taught them to sign. Of course, at first, they were unsure what our lives would look like. But they saw how deaf adults lived and realised our futures needn’t be limited, and made us feel that was true.”
Nadarajah went to a mainstream primary school, then spent a year at a local secondary. There, she had a Communication Support Worker (CSW), tasked with helping make her education accessible. “But unless I was in a classroom learning,” she recalls, “the CSW wouldn’t be there. I was missing out on that socialisation. There were other limitations.” Take science classes. “The CSW wasn’t a scientist. Understandably, they didn’t have the subject knowledge to explain things to me in detail. There just wasn’t enough support for me to succeed.”
Before the end of year seven, she’d transferred to a deaf-specific boarding school in Berkshire. She flourished. “A lot of deaf schools have closed,” she says. “Now, lots of people think sending deaf children to them is not a good idea. But I had a great experience.” Not that her five years there were challenge-free. “The teachers wanted everyone to use speech,” she remembers. “I tried, but my speech wasn’t brilliant. When you can’t hear, it’s hard to pick up the nuances of spoken language: how you make specific sounds or the intricacies of certain letters.” Even assessing how loudly you’re talking can prove complex. “Deafness is a spectrum. My brother speaks well and uses a hearing aid. These don’t work for me. I’ve never felt the need to speak. I can’t learn to hear, but a hearing person can learn to communicate visually. Why is the burden on me?”
Nadarajah is fluent in seven languages. There’s English, BSL and Auslan (Australian sign language) picked up from time spent living and studying in Adelaide: midway through her degree at the University of Hertfordshire, her parents moved to Australia, where she completed her undergrad. Nadarajah learned American Sign Language (ASL) while travelling in the US. “Then after finishing my degree and qualifying as a teacher, I met a French guy.” When she was 25, they married and moved to Paris, where she learned French and French Sign Language. She later spent three years teaching on Réunion Island, which has its own Creole. Of course, she learned to sign that as well.
While in Paris, Nadarajah searched out ways to learn French, both signed and spoken. “I heard about a local deaf-led theatre company,” she says, “the International Visual Theatre. I went to see one of their plays, The Vagina Monologues, and I loved it.” The production was entirely deaf-led. “It was beautiful. They had their own theatre in central Paris; a respected programme curated by deaf artists that attracted mainstream audiences.” She’d never seen anything like it. “There hadn’t been opportunities for me to be involved in theatre when I was younger.” But this deaf theatre “was a whole new world. They ran courses and evening sessions, and offered me a place. It wasn’t that I wanted to be an actor, just something fun to do on the side.”
In 2009, at 31, and recently divorced, Nadarajah returned to the UK. Soon after, she went to see a production put on by Deafinitely Theatre, a deaf theatre company that had formed in her time away. She was introduced to their artistic director. “They were looking for someone with an Asian background to help with an upcoming project.” She did two weeks of research and development. “I fell in love with the work; they told me I had talent and potential. From then on, I’ve had a fire in my belly.”
It was here at the Globe that Nadarajah had her first professional part. Ahead of the London 2012 Olympics, the theatre was producing 37 plays in 37 languages – one, Love Labour’s Lost, in BSL. “I hated Shakespeare,” she admits, “because of my experience at school. My education had failed me. I’d been taught Shakespeare through speech, and hadn’t understood it. There’d been no attempt to use sign language to help: it’s hard to grapple with straight from the page. I’d shut it out.” Reluctantly, Nadarajah auditioned. She landed the part.
“Through that process,” Nadarajah says, beaming, “I fell in love with Shakespeare. I thrived while translating; for the first time I understood his stories to be universal.” Nadarajah couldn’t simply muddle through any section: the intricate translation process saw her contend with Shakespeare’s characters with an intimacy few speaking actors require. It shows, she believes, in the performances deaf actors give. “I do think having to turn the text into sign language is a gift,” she says. “It helps me peel back the layers, forcing me to explore the emotions at the heart of the play. That was as true for my first show here as it is with Antony & Cleopatra.”
She packed in the teaching to act full-time, unsure if the work would prove regular. Certainly, there was little access to training. “No drama school had proper provision for deaf actors.” Through Deafinitely, funding was applied for to run twice-monthly workshops for deaf performers led by experts and professionals. “We covered monologues, ensemble, physical theatre, clowning. I was obsessed. I’d skip social events, birthdays and weddings to be there.”
Her worries were misplaced – she’s booked and busy: A Midsummer Night’s Dream and Hamlet at the Globe; As You Like It, twice. “I did projects with the National Theatre, the Royal Exchange Theatre, the Royal Court and Bristol Old Vic.” Developing deaf writers, she’s certain, is key to transforming the industry. It’s why she’s in the final stages of penning a play for the Edinburgh Fringe. “So many people don’t know about our rich lives and experiences. Too often we’re presented in a patronising way. Why not write our stories ourselves?”
She’s done some TV work, recently – a part in The Vampire Academy. “But in 2024,” she argues, “theatre is way ahead of film and TV when it comes to deaf people. Theatre gives you freedom to take risks. In TV, there’s a reluctance and an old-school mindset.” Change, she hopes, is coming. “There are two new TV series coming out next year, plus a feature film, with major deaf characters and storylines.” She points to Strictly’s Rose Ayling-Ellis as a pioneer. “I’ve been acting for 16 years and have seen the pool of deaf actors grow. Certainly, white deaf actors. The number of Black deaf actors is on the up. But Asian women? The list is tiny. Each time I perform, I hope to inspire others and see it grow.”
Increasing mainstream representation – and advances in medicine – Nadarajah fears, come with risks. “There’s so much value,” she says, “in the culture that deaf community has created over centuries. We have to keep that alive and pass it on to the next generation, even as we fight to make the world more accessible.” She’s proud of her community’s traditions and customs. “Yes, improved accessibility will make life easier, but the deaf community contracting and diminishing until it one day disappears worries me. I want a world where I can go to the theatre at any time; where deaf actors can perform any part. For all disabled people to have equal access and opportunity. But also, for our community to retain what’s so valuable.”
All of this, she says, keeps that fire in her belly blazing. “I don’t know how many people there are like me out there: a brown woman, who uses sign language and doesn’t speak. What I do know is that few of us are visible. It’s important for me to be out here, to be seen.” So many deaf women, she believes, have their potential limited. “Whether it’s their family, education or society, many of us are left feeling like we can’t. Not offered the access, support and opportunities. I want to say to them: you can. The door is open. And just like my parents encouraged me to live life without restrictions, I want other parents of deaf children to see me succeed and know their kids can, too.”
Antony & Cleopatra runs from 4 August to 15 September at the Globe Theatre, London (shakespearesglobe.com)
Hair by Ricky Walters of Salon64; makeup by Jaz Crush using Iconic London and Charlotte Tilbury
