Role Of A Trail-Blazer: Deaf Actor Takes On Fresh Challenges

Howie Seago's resume would be an impressive one for any actor.

A strapping, ginger-bearded Tacoma native, Seago has criss-crossed the country with a major American stage troupe. He won a coveted Helen Hayes Award for his lead in "Ajax," an experimental Peter Sellars production, and guest-starred on such popular TV shows as "Star Trek: The Next Generation" and "The Equalizer."

But given that Seago is deaf, and communicates in performance primarily via American Sign Language (ASL), this makes him more than a lucky (and versatile) actor. It makes him a trail blazer.

Currently a teacher in the Deaf Program at Seattle Central Community College, Seago is also an activist, a passionate proponent of theater created for and by the deaf. He is pouring that passion into his direction of "Language of Love," a cross-cultural, "bi-lingual" drama which premieres next Thursday, April 22, at the Theatre Off Jackson. (It plays through May 16; for information, call 322-5423.)

During a recent interview, Seago utilized several modes of communication. Questions were translated for him into sign language by an interpreter. He responded by simultaneously signing and speaking his answers.

What came through loud and clear was Seago's great exuberance, and readiness to create opportunities where none exist. "Language of Love," his most ambitious project since moving back to the Seattle area two years ago, came out of a fortuitous meeting with Alice B.

Theatre artistic director, Susan Finque.

"When Susan and I got together it was like twin souls meeting," Seago noted. "Sparks flew!"

According to Finque, "I had wanted to do a project about the deaf gay culture, but I needed someone with artistic vision to lead it. Meeting Howie was very serendipitous."

Helped out by a $10,000 grant from the Seattle Arts Commission, the two instigated workshops with actors and two playwrights (Lewis Merkin, who is deaf, and Drew Emery, who is not). What emerged from the process was "Language of Love."

"It's about the personal odyssey of a deaf gay man," explained Seago. "I'm not gay but I have many gay friends, so the idea fascinated me. The show deals with many other themes, too. It's about deaf and hearing people, Jews and Christians, gays and straights, blacks and whites."

One of Seago's utmost concerns is making the piece comprehensible to the deaf. That will be achieved partly by having two actresses "shadow" the lead actors (Merkin and John Jackson) while interpreting their dialogue into sign and speech.

"We want everyone in the audience to understand," Seago emphasizes, "the hearing subscribers, but especially the deaf . . . It took us a month just to translate the script, because ASL is not a written language. We had to write down the signs for each word, in a kind of shorthand called ASL gloss."

Seago is used to breaking down communication barriers: He's been doing that all his life. He grew up with a hearing mother, but a deaf younger brother and a hard of hearing older brother and father. In Tacoma public schools he was taught to lip read and to speak, but ASL was forbidden.

Later he became a fervent sign- language advocate. "Lip reading is so difficult and limiting, it's amazing deaf people survive in school," Seago contends. "My deaf brother and I made up our own signs just so we could converse. And I got my education mostly through reading. My mother was an English teacher, and she brought home a lot of books."

New worlds of expression opened at California State University, Northridge. A deaf friend cast Seago in a student play, and taught him ASL for the role.

"I was studying psychology and planned to become a counselor for the deaf," he recalled. "But the more I did theater, the more I realized the psychological value in expressing things onstage."

From then on, Seago was hooked. He formed the student deaf group Happy Handfuls, and spent two years acting with the award-winning National Theatre of the Deaf. ("Language of Love" actors Merkin, Jer Loudenback and Kymberli Colbourne are also NTD veterans.)

The years with NTD were not happy for Seago: "I have a lot of political problems with NTD. They have a hearing director, and the signing in the shows is so exaggerated for artistic effect that deaf people can't understand it."

He demonstrated with a swooping version of a common sign, obviously obscuring its meaning.

More satisfying to Seago was his work on "Rainbow's End,"a PBS show for deaf and hearing kids. And he's very proud of his acting stints for Sellars and other directors willing to integrate signing into their artistic vision.

Whatever projects he's embroiled in, Seago forcefully contributes his own views. While living in San Diego with his wife Lori and their two young sons (all of whom hear, but are fluent in ASL), he convinced producers of TV's "Star Trek" to build an episode around him.

But after Seago read the script, he demanded major changes: "They had a lot of misconceptions about deaf people that I wasn't comfortable with, like the notion that you can learn speech overnight. I said, `No way, it's not realistic. I won't do it like this.' "

To Seago's amazement, his revisions were implemented. He starred in the 1989 episode, to very positive response.

Seago is not as pleased with other media images of the deaf. He calls the character played by Marlee Matlin in TV's "Reasonable Doubts" series, "Super Deafie. She reads lips in steamy showers, she reads lips around corners! It's very misleading about what deaf people are capable of."

He also dismisses Matlin's new movie, "Hear No Evil" ("another deaf victim story") and complains that the Oscar-winning actress "hasn't used her power to help other deaf performers."

Seago may take on that task himself. Happily resettled here, he will continue acting at local theaters (he was in a recent show at Seattle Children's Theatre). But he also wants to start a new deaf troupe: "There's a lot of good young talent here I want to encourage."

And he's very high on "Language of Love."

"It's about a man's love, his heart, his soul," said Seago, punctuating the air with his eloquent hands. "You don't see enough deaf characters with soul."