Playwright: Nina Raine. At: Steppenwolf Theatre, 1650 N. Halsted St. Tickets: 312-335-1650; www.steppenwolf.org; $20-$82. Runs through: Feb. 9
The overeducated and overachieving family whose surname we never learn dwell in a household of harangues, soliloquies and pronouncements making for a domestic atmosphere vibrating with enough crossfire oratory to ignite psychokinetic manifestations.
Papa Christopher is given to fulminating against society in general and his kinfolk in specific, while Mama Beth writes marital-murder mysteries when not striving to keep the peace among her own brood. It's no wonder that daughter Ruth withdraws into dreams of a singing career and older son Daniel is afflicted with a peripatetic stutter exacerbated by aural hallucinations. Then, there is younger son Billy, who dwells in silence, having been born deaf.
Billy is no allegorical-innocent Tiny Tim or Lenny Small, however. Having been taught to lip-read and vocalize by parents opposed to "self-definition by disability," his introduction to Sylviaa young woman acclimated to deaf culture, who is gradually losing her hearing to a hereditary illnessopens up new vistas for the sheltered lad, but also mandates uncomfortable decisions: can these sensory-crossed lovers find contentment as second-class citizens amid the auditory-unchallenged, or should they instead seek acceptance in the equally snobbish world of the auditory-impaired? How will their filial loyaltiesspecifically, the fraternal bond between Billy and Danielbe tested by their growth? What if their goals cease to be mutually compatible?
Nina Raine doesn't make the choices any easier for playgoers. Yes, the staging includes projected subtitlesfor sign language and, significantly, for Daniel's increasingly halting speechbut we are also confronted with conversations where no translations are offered. Music is played in increasingly narrow tonal ranges, fading into white noise. The characters interrupt and overlap one another in logorrheic frenzy ( rules of discourse apparently viewed as bourgeois affectations ).
What speaks louder than the verbiage hurled at one another by this noisy, vulgar, fiercely affectionate tribe is the undeniable pain of individuals struggling to articulate their needs to loved ones seeminglywell, deaf to their entreaties. A journey's first step can be a single word ( or gesture ), though, and while audiences may resent Raine for refusing to provide her densely textured play a tidy resolution, when your story is all about taking those risky first steps, an ending that sends us home thinking "NOW what?" is a compelling reminder that only with the next step can progress occur.