Mountain Language | Classic Stage Company Repertory Theater | October 31 – December 23, 1989

According to New York Times reporter Peter Nichols, “In the spring of 1988, [Harold Pinter] sent Lauren Bacall to scout an earlier [Classic Stage Company] production of The Birthday Party. Impressed with what he heard, Mr. Pinter later visited the theater himself. When Ms. Perloff proposed pairing the two plays, he not only approved the idea but asked her to direct.” The double-billed program featured a cast including Peter Riegert, Jean Stapleton and David Straithairn. Jean Stapleton won an Obie Award in 1990 for her performance as the Elderley Woman.

Artistic and Production Team

Music: Wayne Horvitz

Director:  Carey Perloff

Set Designer: Loy Arcenas

Costume Designer: Gabriel Berry

Lighting Designer: Beverly Emmons

Sound Designer: Dan Moses Schreier

Production Stage Manager: Richard Hester

Production Manager: Jeffrey Berzon

Casting: Ellen Novack

Dialect Coach: Nancy Lane

 

Cast 

Woman in Line: Katherine Cohen

Second Guard: Thomas Delling

Woman in Line: Ellie Hannibal

Woman in Line: Mary Beth Kilkelly

Young Woman: Wendy Makkena

Guard: Miguel Perez

Prisoner: Peter Riegert

Sergeant: Richard Riehle

Woman in Line: Gwynne Rivers

Elderly Woman: Jean Stapleton

Officer/Hooded Man: David Strathairn

 

Above, two photos of Carey Perloff’s 1989 production of Mountain Language at the Classic Stage Company Repertory Theater.

 

Mountain Language | Oval House Theatre, London | November 29 – December 6, 2000

Director Jessica Higgs’s production, at the Oval House Theatre in London, notably presented in the play in British Sign Language (BSL), double-billed with Pinter’s one-act, Landscape. The work of the company that presented the play, Tandem TC, “[focuses] on difference and integration of difference in society, creating platforms for culturally diverse and unheard voices.” In a review from The Guardian, published in December 2000, the choice to present the play in BSL is understood as inspired, understanding the oppression of the use of the titular “Mountain Language” as similar to the oppression of the use of BSL up until recent times: 

“Harold Pinter’s plays take on a new depth of meaning in this intriguing double bill presented by a new company, In Tandem. The actors are all deaf, and the plays are performed in British Sign Language. For those in the audience who cannot understand BSL, there are spoken interpretations. This is, of course, the opposite of what normally happens in the theatre, where the actors speak and there are occasional sign-interpreted performances.

What immediately strikes you is that this is no gimmick, and nor is it merely a service to the hard of hearing. The 20-minute, Mountain Language, inspired by the plight of the Kurdish people in Turkey, is about oppressed people who are denied the right to speak their own language. Until recently, well-meaning but misguided ideas about assimilation into the mainstream meant that deaf children were often denied the right to use BSL and forced to communicate vocally. But even if you were oblivious of the history of BSL, Jessica Higgs’s production of the brief play in which bully boy soldiers intimidate a group of women trying to visit their imprisoned husbands has a stark clarity. It is as if the gestural expressiveness of BSL means all of Pinter’s pauses are filled up. But as fast as they are, more gaping holes appear.”

 

 

Cast

Jeni Draper, Frank Essery, Neil Fox, Lee O’Brien, Caroline Parker, John Paton, Steven Webb and Simon Whitehouse

Production Team

Director Jessica Higgs

Designer Kate Owen

Lighting Aideen Malone

 

 

Mountain Language | New Life Theatre Group, London | 1996

In London, on June 19, 1996, a group of twelve Kurdish refugees who were rehearsing a production of Mountain Language in the Kurdistan Workers’ Association community centre, in Finsbury Park, north London, found their rehearsal stormed by armed officers. Believing the actors were armed with real guns, not props ones which they had obtained from the Royal National Theatre, the officers arrested the group at gunpoint, handcuffed them, and “held [them]” in the back of a police van for more than five hours without explanation.” The group included a twelve-year-old boy. Similar to the events of the play, “the actors were forbidden to speak in their native language.” The New Life Theatre Group was due to perform Mountain Language. According to Julia Hartley-Brewer, ​“The men, who all have home office status as refugees after fleeing torture and oppression in Turkey, brought a civil action against the police for assault, trespass and false imprisonment.” The Metropolitan police reportedly paid £55,000 in damages to 11 of the refugees; the twelfth man’s case was still in progress as of 2000. The men’s solicitor called the case “a horror story of life imitating art.”