SETTING

Nail salon in a strip mall; the present.

Lights go up on two Deaf women conversing in ASL while getting a pedicure. Their pedicurists are hearing but invisible to the audience; they do not know ASL.

DEAF WOMAN A

Hey-hey-hey – not that color. I told you Bahamian Blue. Fucking idiot can’t understand me. (exaggerates lip movements: “blue, blue, blue”; gestures to the color of her blouse – blue.) Same on my toe. Fuckin’ hearing people – can’t even understand a simple pointing gesture. And they call us “deaf and dumb.” Right?

DEAF WOMAN B

Look – you shouldn’t be saying that.

DEAF WOMAN A

She can’t understand me, what’re you worried about?

DEAF WOMAN B

Your attitude – body language. I’m sure she gets it.

DEAF WOMAN A

She ain’t getting the Bahamian Blue, that’s for sure! Lemme ask you something – if a deaf person has to go to court, is it still called a hearing? 

DEAF WOMAN B

I don’t know what you’re talking about.

DEAF WOMAN A

You know how people go to court for a hearing? Well, if deaf people go, what do we call it?

DEAF WOMAN B

I don’t know.

DEAF WOMAN A

Exactly my point! We shouldn’t call it a “hearing” though, right?

DEAF WOMAN B

Hmmm, I guess not…

DEAF WOMAN A

And, do you ever read – (to pedicurist) OW! Easy – you went too deep. (gestures “take it easy”) You think she did that on purpose??

DEAF WOMAN B

I don’t know, maybe it was a little accident.

DEAF WOMAN A

Anyway, you ever read in newspapers headlines like “Dialogue of the Deaf?”

DEAF WOMAN B

No, I don’t think so. What’s that?

DEAF WOMAN A: I see it all the time. Why do fuckin’ hearing people keep saying that? It makes no sense. You and I can dialogue all day long till the cows come home. And, I’m so sick of this one: “Fall on deaf ears.” You ever seen that phrase?

DEAF WOMAN B

Never.

DEAF WOMAN A

Hearing people write that all the time in newspapers and magazines. I’m gonna start saying, “It fell on hearing eyes.”

DEAF WOMAN B

Sorry, I’m totally lost.

DEAF WOMAN A

Instead of information not coming through the ears, it will hit the eyes and bounce off. Like hearing can’t see or comprehend anything. Know what I mean?

DEAF WOMAN B

Aahhh!

DEAF WOMAN A

So, you get it?

DEAF WOMAN B

No, but this feels wonderful. My pedicurist is really good.

Lights down fast.

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Willy Conley’s most recent book is Visual-Gestural Communication: A Workbook in Nonverbal Expression and Reception. Other books are Listening Through the Bone – Collected Poems, The Deaf Heart – a Novel, and Vignettes of the Deaf Character and Other Plays. Conley is a retired professor of theatre from Gallaudet University, the world’s only liberal arts university for deaf and hard-of-hearing students. For more info about his work, please visit: www.willyconley.com