A deaf New York film professor and a hearing-impaired bookkeeper fall head over heels into adulterous love in Arrival & Departure, playwright Stephen Sachs’ 21st-century updating of Noel Coward’s über-romantic cinematic classic Brief Encounter, a compelling, excitingly staged, terrifically acted Fountain Theatre World Premiere whose script could still use some work.

Like Brief Encounter’s Trevor Howard and Celia Johnson seventy-three years before them, Sam (Troy Kotsur) and Emily (Deanne Bray) meet cute in a subway station when he kindly removes a speck of dirt from her eye, after which coffee at an underground Dunkin’ Donuts has the married-to-others twosome comparing notes.

 Former moviemaker Sam teaches Visual Expression In Film at the Edgarton School For The Deaf, has a deaf wife and two sons, and lives his life in American Sign Language.

Emily, on the other hand, has been married for thirteen-years to a hearing man, has a thirteen-year old daughter, and though she has clearly learned ASL at some unspecified point, her daily life is conducted in spoken English, just one reason this man’s “brilliant, astonishing” signing takes her breath away.

 Arrival & Departure charts the course of Sam and Emily’s burgeoning love over the course of three Thursday meetings.

Meanwhile over in another corner of Dunkin’ Donuts, subway worker Russell (Shon Fuller) and cashier Mya (Jessica Jade Andres) have their own romcom going on, moving from dislike at first sight (on her part if not on his) to something that might just turn into love.

Like countless Deaf West Theatre productions before it, Arrival & Departure features a pair of hearing actors (Adam Burch and Stasha Surdyke as conveniently located subway riders and park goers) simultaneously translating Sam and Emily’s ASL tête-à-têtes, projected captions providing the same service to the deaf and hearing impaired in scenes involving Emily, her husband Doug (Brian Robert Burns), and her daughter Jule (Aurelia Myers).

 Playwright Sachs gives audiences plenty of reasons to understand Emily’s attraction to Sam. After thirteen years of marriage to a born-again Christian, the suburban housewife has only now made the decision to be baptized, and for this reason alone, Sam’s secular life may hold a particular allure, particularly since Emily and Doug have been doing quite a bit of quarreling of late, much of it revolving around their rebellious thirteen-year-old.

Most importantly, however, being with Sam allows Emily to enter a world she’s been denied as someone “not deaf enough” to be considered deaf and “not hearing enough” to be deemed hearing.

No wonder then that Sam and his eloquent, sexy signing prove impossible to resist.

As for what draws Sam to Emily in the same “you complete me” way she is drawn to him, Arrival & Departure gives us hardly a clue, leaving this reviewer wanting more.

 Russell and Mya’s scenes together sparkle just as their movie counterparts’ did back in 1945, providing both comic relief and the chance to observe a couple unfettered by inconvenient spouses.

 Jule’s online flirtation with an older boy she’s never met, on the other hand, merely takes focus away from Arrival & Departure’s A-plot, leaving Sam and Emily with only a handful of too-brief encounters, not enough for their farewell meeting to achieve maximum impact.

Fortunately, Arrival & Departure’s pluses are many under Sachs’ dynamic direction, first and foremost the chance to see real-life marrieds Kotsur and Bray delivering performances rarely seen on L.A. stages.

Though I must take Emily’s word that Sam’s signing is in a class by itself, even for those relying on captions, Kotsur’s ASL is a joy to behold, and Bray transitions effortlessly between speech and sign in a richly layered portrait of a woman torn between responsibility and desire.

Burns is terrific too as a loving, well-meaning husband whose unwillingness to learn the language of the deaf is just one reason his wife might be tempted to stray, and Myers captures all the vulnerability, self-doubt, and angst of a social-media era teen.

 Fuller and Andres make for an irresistibly appealing pair of seemingly mismatched but obviously made-for-each-other New Yorkers, each with his or her own swagger and charm.

 As for Burch and Surdyke, not only do the L.A. stage vets “dub” Sam and Emily to rickly acted perfection, they ace their cameos as Sam’s colleague Jeff and Emily’s friend Marjorie, each of whose timing leaves something to be desired.

Arrival & Departure’s state-of-the-art production design mixes Matthew G. Hill’s just-right subway-and-elsewhere set, Nicholas Santiago’s high-def cineplex-ready video design, and Peter Bayne’s electrifying sound design and movie-style original music scoring, vibrantly lit (along with Michael Mullen’s character-perfect costumes and Michael Navarro’s meticulously chosen props) by Donny Jackson.

 Add to this Gary Franco’s dynamically choreographed scene changes and you’ve got a production worth seeing if only for its design and execution. (Deaf and hearing impaired audience members are advised to avoid house-right seating the better to view all captioning.)

Last but not least, The Fountain deserves major kudos simply for including Arrival & Departure in a mainstream theater season and for casting actors reflective of today’s America.

Emily Lehrer is production stage manager and Deena Tovar is assistant stage manager. Brian Cole is ASL stage manager. Lisa Hermatz and Jevon Whetter are ASL masters. Scott Tuomey is technical director.

Arrival & Departure is produced by Produced by Simon Levy, Deborah Culver, and James Bennett

Though its script could benefit from additions and cuts, the latest from the Fountain once again proves the venerable L.A. theater company one of SoCal’s finest. And as any Brief Encounter fan can tell you, make sure to have Kleenex on hand.

The Fountain Theatre, 5060 Fountain Ave., Los Angeles.
www.FountainTheatre.com

–Steven Stanley
July 14, 2108
Photos: Ed Krieger

Tags: Fountain Theatre, Los Angeles Theater Review, Noël Coward, Stephen Sachs