My overall impression
This fascinating one-woman memoir by actress Gloria Rosen is about growing up with two deaf parents. Being a hearing child created an oppressive atmosphere for a young girl and the story of how she managed to survive her harsh mother is both shocking and amusing. It is a glimpse into a silent world that imprisons all who inhabit it in one way or another. Her mother forbade signing – she was a brilliant lip reader – but that cut young Gloria off from her father and created other problems. Still, I was saddened that as a writer Rosen did not let us appreciate her mother’s dilemma. How, in order not to feel handicapped her mother, born deaf, needed to make the whole people, the hearing ones, seem stupid. I’d like to have seen more compassion for her mother’s dilemma and perhaps an ending with understanding and forgiveness.
Morna Murphy Martell, Theatre Critic
http://theatrespokenhere.blogspot.com/
