How PRIVATE JONES Combines Three Languages to Tell Its Story

Private Jones, the story of a deaf Welsh sniper in World War I, is Marshall Pailet’s latest musical triumph, currently playing at Signature Theatre in Arlington, Virginia. This trilingual production (featuring spoken English, American Sign Language, and British Sign Language) also features a cast and creative team of hearing, Deaf, and hard-of-hearing members, including Director of Artistic Sign Language, Alexandria Wailes. 

I recently sat down with both Pailet and Wailes to discuss all things Private Jones. Our conversation has been edited for clarity and length.  

Theatrely: For those of us who haven’t seen Private Jones yet, how would you describe it in your own words?

Marshall Pailet: It's the story of a deaf Welsh sniper in World War I, and it's told mostly from his perspective. The character has recently lost his hearing, so he speaks and he reads lips, and he's able to fake his way into the war. And to tell the story, we have a cast and creative and design team of hearing, Deaf, and hard-of-hearing artists. And it's a show that we're creating for a hearing and deaf audience. 

Alexandria Wailes: I’ll add that we are exploring different types of language in this piece. It is a musical, and so there is the world of music and movement. There are also different sign languages that are being used in this show and the script itself. 

The show is based on such unique subject matter. I'm curious, Marshall, how you found this material and what inspired you to turn it into a musical?

Pailet: I was interested in doing a World War I story, a trench warfare story from one person's perspective, and I wanted that perspective to be unique. And one day I came across this article on deaf, British Isles stories from World War I, and there were a couple sentences about this guy named Gomer Jones, who apparently was Welsh and a sharpshooter and well-liked, and indistinguishable from his fellow soldiers. That's all the information that I had from that initial article; and I did a lot of digging later and haven't found much more. But I just couldn't stop thinking about it. And I make musicals, so I was like, how do you make this a musical? Could you make this a musical? How would you theatricalize this soldier's story? How would you dramatize a combat scene from the perspective of someone who can't hear the bullets or can't hear the explosions? So I thought about it for a bunch of years, and then one day I was invited to this writers’ retreat, and I thought I was going to get the rights to this other thing, but I didn't. And I was like, maybe I'll do that, like the World War I one. And I wrote it very quickly, the first draft of it. And, then I met Alexandria pretty soon after that, and that kind of launched us down this path. 

Alexandria, talk about joining the project and what that process has looked like in terms of incorporating American Sign Language (ASL) and British Sign Language (BSL) with spoken English.

Wailes: Marshall and I ended up meeting through Zoom in Spring of 2020. He told me a little bit about the project, and I was immediately intrigued, because the story is one that we don't see very often. So when Marshall sent me the script, the concept just jumped off the pages for me, and I realized just how exciting it could be to be a part of exploring the world in this way. I was talking with Marshall about what it's going to mean to actually weave this story together with different languages and to be able to hold space for them. People just assume ASL is universal, but to actually orient them to a different sign language altogether and educate them on that. I'm really looking forward to seeing what people think when they see this show. They will see some BSL, ASL, spoken English, and the movements that we've incorporated through choreography that have informed some of the gestural vocabulary that we're using. 

Pailet: It's been this continually evolving conversation, because we have to balance so many things. We really have to balance authenticity. When is authenticity important to us and when is it not? Coming into the show, nobody knows what's going to happen, not a single person. And we're dealing with characters who are late deafened, who have various levels of exposure to the Deaf community and to sign language. We had to make choices that were beautiful, authentic, but also clear. 

Wailes: Our goal as a creative team was to look at everything that we did with intention. What are we trying to express at this moment? What are we trying to explore? And then edit the decisions in real time just to see what those possibilities and those choices would lead us to. 

Pailet: And also designing something for a hearing and Deaf audience, this is what makes a musical different from a play, it's the music, right? But not all of our audience is going to hear the music, and the music has so much emotional information. The music starts to play in a certain way, and we know if we're supposed to be suspicious of this character, or if they're in love with someone. Music gives us so much information, but not for everyone in this house. And so we have to make sure that the show sounds the way that it looks, the way that it feels. 

How do you make a musical look like it sounds? I know Foley sound design plays a large role in the show, so could you tell us more about how that came about?

Pailet: The Foley was kind of the idea that unlocked the whole thing for me when I was like, how do you how do you tell this story? That, to me, was the link between the musical world and the visual world. This idea that the character, as a young boy, is hearing, and as the first thing we see, he’s having this incredibly important moment, this foundational moment with his father. So what if we create this aural soundscape around Gomer that are all of these sounds that he has an emotional relationship with? Like every time that he shoots the gun, he feels a certain way, every time he hears his father guiding his hand up and down the gun to aim it, he feels comfort. He associates that feeling with his father. That, though later, the character loses his hearing, he still feels those things when he sees that thing. And then we can use the sound, which doesn't represent the thing that he's hearing, because he's not hearing anything, but the thing that he's feeling. And we're creating a visual and aural emotional experience for the audience. And then we use other Foley in an onomatopoeiac way. It's like when someone taps him on the shoulder, there's a “tap tap”, and I don't know how emotional that is. It's just kind of visceral. 

Wailes: I just want to say one thing about the “tap tap”. It's actually one of my favorite Foleys, because as a deaf person, if you want to get someone’s attention, one of the ways is to tap them on the shoulder. How much we pull intentional focus to that is something I really appreciate and enjoy. 

Alexandria, as the Director of Artistic Sign Language for the production, how have you been involved in the various technical elements of the show?

Wailes: Definitely projections and videos, working with the captioner. Just how much information we are portraying on the screen, how many lines of text are on the screen, how do you make sure that it's not daunting? How are we able to show spoken dialog? How are we able to show sign dialog, music, and any additional information through captions in a way that it works in collaboration with the piece? And, yes we also have dynamic captions as well. 

Pailet: Every show is captioned so that every performance is accessible, and I think actually the captions, the way that they ended up being, it was kind of a happy accident where, if you want to, you can ignore them. And if you want to use them, you can use them. And then we have dynamic captions, which means captions in the center of the playing space. And then we have select performances that are ASL interpreted, so we’re trying to give a menu of accessibility options.

What has it been like working with a company of hearing, Deaf, and hard-of-hearing actors throughout the rehearsal process?

Pailet: There's a language barrier, but the language barrier is pretty easily overcomeable. We have an incredible interpreter team that's with us all the time. And really, when you learn ASL, then there's no language barrier. Logistically, we have to factor in visual cues. Our whole company: hearing, Deaf, and hard-of-hearing, everyone's doing all the choreography. Everyone's playing a soldier, everyone's playing a deaf factory worker. And when you watch, they are indistinguishable. I've had people be like, “It'd be really great if there were deaf people in the show.” But there are! But because we're doing dance numbers, Alexandria and our choreographer Misha are building in visual cues that are indecipherable to the audience, which kind of keep the entire company in unison. 

Wailes: I think because we built this with visual and embedded cues, it really empowers the company to become more present. It really raises the personal stakes and the compassion that our cast has for each other. And I think that's necessary if you want to create connection and engagement; you have to have a little shift in your perspective in order to make that successful. 

Pailet: It's amazing what they're doing. And it's all self-contained within the company. Normally in a production like this, you would need lots of cue lights in the audience to tell actors who aren't hearing the music, like, it's time to do this, it's time to do that. And almost everything except for a couple of entrances, maybe like three entrances, is self-contained. The company has each other, and they never let each other down.

Private Jones is currently running at Signature Theatre in Arlington, Virginia through March 17, 2023. For more information and tickets, click here.