Jenny Sealey - If I knew then what I know now; disabled people reflect on their careers

RICHARD>>: We were going to finish with Jenny Sealy, and I'm going to start at the end with two very recent things. One, no-one will know about, well, some of you might know about it but it only happened last week, which is that Jenny was awarded the Liberty Human Rights Award for the Arts, and it is really, really good news. She is delighted I know and I'm sure lots of people are really pleased too. The other thing lots of you will know about is that she co-directed the opening ceremony for the London Paralympics in the summer. She is fundamentally a director, she is are the artistic director of Graeae, and she has been in that position since 1997. She was awarded MBE in 2009 in the Queens Honours, and she has also latterly been Artistic Adviser for the Unlimited 2012 festival. She has directed so many productions and I have pulled out just four that I think people will connect with, ‘Reasons to be Cheerful’ about the late, great Ian Drury, ‘Bent’, ‘Iron Man’, and ‘Romeo and Juliet’. Jenny?

JENNY>>: Thank you. You must know that MBE stands for must buy everything. Just remember that. Can you hear me okay? Right. What you need to know about me is I'm a liar. And a consummate nodder, and I think you might join me in this. As deaf people, we nod. We nod sagely and wisely, we look at someone's body language to see whether we're getting the right information from lipreading, making sure that our facial expressions are appropriate so we're not smiley when someone is actually talking about someone dying. It has happened, believe me.

So I have always lied about what I can hear. I went deaf when I was seven. My best friend, Raymond Macintosh and I were just playing in the classroom, he pushed me and a I just like that, banged my head, deaf. I was taken to a specialist, they sent me off to a psychologist and psychiatrist because according to everyone I was lying, that word again. I was lying to get attention. Fortunately the psychiatrist said no, look at her audiogram. It is evident that she is now profoundly deaf.

So I started a new primary school, and the deaf school in Nottingham was closing down, so I had to go to a mainstream primary school. Not only was I lying about what I could hear or couldn't hear, I became a cheat. Very good picture of ourselves for the start isn't it, it is fantastic, so I'm a cheat because, like you say, in your speech, you cannot write and take notes at the same time. It doesn't happen. You cannot lipread. It is impossible. You can do it but then you cannot read what you've written. And my worst nightmares were mental arithmetic and Mr. Gill, our teacher, would fire out all these numbers so I sat next to Karen Suid, and I would just blatantly copy down her answers. She was crap at maths. I should have sat next to Simon Chandler.

Big school, secondary school, day one, history lesson with Mr. Bennett, he had enormous amount of facial hair. I cannot see his lips, and I just sat there, feeling the sweat trickling down my sack blue school uniform shirt, this panic rising. I can feel it now, thinking oh my God. Oh my God. How the hell I going to do this? You know, in secondary school, teachers don't necessarily sit at the front, they like to roam and full of self importance. So again, like you, sat next to the person who had the best handwriting, so all my school books, my handwriting slants. And a bit like you I thought this is, you know, I cannot cope with this, so I had to devour myself in my own world of learning and hope that what I was learning was the right thing, but again, like you, I did ballet. I loved my ballet. My dance teacher when I became deaf said it is fine. It doesn't matter if you cannot hear the music. You just follow the person in front. And so I did. And I was quite good. I lost myself in my port de bras and my chasses it was heaven. So when it came to doing A levels I wanted to do something practical. Something where it was engaging with people. But linking it to my dancing, so I did English and theatre studies.

In all of that, at school, I never said my name is Jenny I'm deaf, at sixth form I never said my name is Jenny I'm deaf, but sixth form, one of my tutors said if you want to be an actor Jenny, you have to learn every single part off by heart so that you will always know your cues, and that's what I have always done as an actor and that's what so many other deaf actors do. They just devour the whole play. They read, they map out everybody’s mannerisms, they are so good at cueing, better than any hearing person ever, because you have to.

Then I went to Middlesex Poly. They wouldn't let me on their drama course because I speak funny and they didn't realise that I was very good at learning everyone else's part as well as my own. Thanks God I was a good enough dancer, I was able to do the BA Performing Arts but majoring in dance and choreography. At college I became a thief. Okay? And I say, "Thief", in the best possible word as it can be. We had to see so much theatre and there was always the third year degree shows and the second year production so I would go, nothing is signed, nothing is captioned, you know, I would try and read the play before going to see it, but if it was devised, so I spent my whole life in a way living in my head, making up plays, seeing what I was seeing, I would make up the story, sometimes I was so far off the mark, sometimes on the mark. But it created a whole visual narrative of me making up plays in my head, which stood me in very good stead later.

I think what I want to say really from the age of 7 to the age of 21 I really do wish I had been a bit braver to say I'm deaf, I cannot hear, but I didn't. And the only person I have to blame for this is me, really. But I was too scared of the attitudinal barriers, you know, they were there anyway, but it would be worse if I spoke out, so I kept schtum. I finally met my first deaf person at the age of 22. And they were signing, and although I only knew the alphabet, I came home, it was just, oh God. Why, why didn't I know about this earlier? Why did my mum and dad not tell me? I'm not blaming them, but why? And so a whole other world opened up for me. I had to lie at double strengths so I would be with all my deaf lot, not being fully BSL’d up to scratch at that point so lying about my sign language then I would be with my hearing world lying about what I could hear so actually my favourite place is Jenny bubble because I can always hear what I have to say to myself. It is fantastic, so I enter the world of employment, a liar, a cheat, and a thief. Good way to go isn't it really.

What I wish I had known those very first few years, when I was trying to get out there as a jobbing actor is how traditionalist white, middle-class male and non-disabled and how discriminatory the arts were, and to a large extent still are. How hierarchical the deaf community can be, if you speak, you are not really deaf. I have earned my stripes since then, just. And how inaccessible most theatre is, and still is.

I was lucky, as a jobbing actor it was the 80’s when theatre and education really really started to embrace diversity, participation and inclusion in the way that the big theatres still don't do. Those smaller ones value it, so being an actor in theatre in education it was phenomenal. I was able to be a bit more deaf, a bit more honest about me, and it was just amazing when you were in a school amongst deaf kids and they go she is deaf! Oh my God! For those kids, it is a role model, and then I realised, you know, my only role model was ‘Vision On’. Some of you are too young to know what ‘Vision On’ is, but some of you will know what -- your picture and here you are, the only signing was on telly back in the day, if it was sign language, but anyway, I digress.

Theatre education, I mean it doesn't happen so much any more and I think it is an absolute travesty. It is so important for young disabled kids in particular to see other disabled artists in and around the arts so that they can go actually, if I want to be an actor I can be. I will come back to that. I got pregnant. It was right. It wasn't a mistake. It was all planned. Lovely. But I thought being pregnant, and being a jobbing actor was going to be a bit of a nightmare so I applied for this bursary, so eight months pregnant, massive, these were out here, it was just hideous, really, sitting on a bean bag because I couldn't really move, watching Interplay theatre company create the most extraordinary multisensory theatre for young disabled people with profound and multiple sensory disabilities. It was like a gift. I was not going to be a director. No. I wanted to be a jobbing actor, really. But suddenly I realised that all these years I had been making up plays in my head, and that I really, really wanted to have a stab at making the most accessible play for me to be able to access, and other deaf people. Oh, maybe this directing malarky could be fun. So off I go, I'm deeply naive in one way, and I sort of jump headlong into things without really thinking about it, because in my bubble that's fine. I don't really listen. I have selective hearing as well. I don't really listen to people say you cannot do it. But if I can, I will, and I do. I joined Graeae.

Graeae is the most phenomenal theatre company ever, ever, ever. I work with deaf and disabled performers, designers, writers, people. And we are a flagship organisation now, but just let me read you a few things that have been said to me by the theatre profession about Graeae, and about deaf and disabled performers. Please bear with me, these are important. These have been said by other directors, casting Directors, other actors over the last fifteen years, and some as recently as just a few days ago.

Earlier this year.,

"Lorca did not write Blood Wedding for people like you to be in it.“

“Sorry but with that arm we'll never audition you.”

“Do you think a Scottish audience is ready for disabled performers?” (Four months ago)

“Our audience will be offended seeing you lot on my stage.” (A lot of mainstream directors have said that on and off over the last fifteen years.)

“You are black and disabled. You haven't got a fucking chance in this industry.”(Their words, not mine, I apologise for swearing)

“You don't look blind. Oh. Well you had shall I put on a crappy mac, get some dark glasses, take out a white stick and take my make up off? Oh yes, would you? “

“You can come to drama school when you are cured.“

“I endured so many crass comments trying to engage with the world of theatre that I set up Graeae” (This is from the founder of Graeae)

“You've got no legs. Fantastic! You've got the part! But I'm not auditioning for that part. Well it is the only role we're going to give you. “

“Sorry. We'll not be auditioning people like you now or in the near future as we do not want to turn Eastenders into a freak show.”

“Our back stage is completely inaccessible. Thank God.” (That was very recently)

“People do not come to the theatre to have a nice -- sorry, people come to the theatre to have a nice time. Not to be reminded of the tragedy of being handicapped.”

“Jenny, audience need to know that normal people are playing disabled characters, you must see that that makes it much more palatable”

“Why should we be working with people like you is this don't you have your own theatre to go to, your own people to work with?” (Earlier this year)

I do sometimes think if I knew all of that when I first started out with Graeae, whether I would have taken a job. It is immoral, and it is inhumane. Like I have just said, I waiver between extreme naivety, sheer belligerence, and a hatred of injustice or inequality, so if someone said it is not possible, I'm going to make it possible. So we do, we sway from plays like ‘Blasters’, Reasons to be Cheerful, and someone said, you know, can we get disabled people up on a big sway poles that were in the Paralympics. No, we cannot have cripples up there, yes we can and we have. Loads of them. Brilliant.

So in my journeys I have learned

It is okay to be marmite. People either love me or hate me. They either love my work or they hate it. It doesn't matter.
It is more than okay to be deaf. And my Jenny bubble is lovely.

It is okay not to know all of Shakespeare’s histories. I don't understand Beckett and I haven't read Ulysses and I probably never will.

I know one thing, I'm eternally grateful for the lack of casting imagination or creativity for the gate keepers of the theatre world and their lack of vision, artistic access, because they won't do it, hoorah! I have the most extraordinary performers and artists to work with and I have been left on my own because people don't really watch us, left on my own to dibble and dabble and find my own niche around what is artistic access, it is that fusing of sign language with captions, live audio description on stage, I have been given the freedom to do that because nobody else wants to do it. I want all those people for me but on the other hand I also want them to be employed by everybody else. They should be on television. They should be on the radio. They should be on film, and I cannot bear it when someone crips up, and you know what I mean by cripping up, when non-disabled people play disabled characters because if we cannot have jobs playing our own impairment, don't want anyone else playing them.

So, anyway, when it came to the Olympics and the Paralympics, when we got that bid, I went some of my actors will be in that! I have got to start circus based training, so we started a tiny project training up performers, waiting for someone to say Jenny, who have you got that we can use? Silence. Then I heard a rumour. I'm just a nosy old bag as well, I heard this rumour that somebody, a non-disabled organisation, might be leading the opening ceremony of the Paralympics. I thought that's wrong. On many different levels it is wrong. So I called a meeting with ceremonies, and me being me, just said look, I have got all these phenomenal performers, do you want them? I'm training them for you. Are you thinking about having a disabled person being the Artistic Director for the Paralympics? I think you should. I think it will carry more currency with the disability arts organisation. Oh. Do you? Yes. And I think you should really be talking to Bradley Hemming, who is the Artistic Director of Greenwich and Docklands Festivals because he has brought so many disabled artists into the International Festival, and is a disabled man himself. Blank face. I thought I better get out of here actually, so I just took my bows, shrunk off, thought oh my God I really have got this horribly, horribly wrong.

Silence.

February. February 2011, Bradley and I are both asked to be co-, to pitch, as co-artistic directors for the Paralympic opening ceremony. We had six hellish interviews. But we wanted that job. We had this wealth of talent waiting to be unleashed into that stadium. So on the 24th August, 2011, we were appointed. We had less than a real year, a whole year, really, to pull off the biggest show ever. It was a glorious hell. That's all I can say about it. It was phenomenal to be that artistic, to be in that position, to train up 44 deaf and disabled artists on trapeze, on sway poles, nets, cocoons, it is the biggest training initiative that has ever been done in the country. It was -- it gave us a position, not to do anything namby pamby, telly tubbies, child like bollocks, we wanted something with balls, we wanted it to be political, intellectually and emotionally engaging, globally. We had Stephen Hawking. We had ‘Spasticus Autisticus’, the Ian Dury song banned in 1981. We had Alison Lapper in her glory, massive, but she is an icon, divided London, so many people were like God we can't have that in our Trafalgar Square and other people were like she is a woman, she is pregnant, she is disabled, she is an icon of glory, and we had ’I am what I am’. What could go wrong? So we had all those ingredients, and we created a narrative about the enlightenment, and we had our lovely tents, and we were very lucky because Jeremy Hunt was caught up in a whole Leveson la di dah so he took his eye off the ball and left us to get on with it so Spasticus became really real, our protest tents became really real and we were able to have that stadium to say this is who we are. Do not ghettoise us and given the cuts and everything that's going on, it is even more poignant. I have gone way off,

But what I learned from all of this is I couldn't hide behind being deaf and I have done. I had to be really, really deaf. I had to, I had interpreters with me, I had to be really fierce. It was a very male environment, artistically and just generally, but our big producer was this fearsome, fearsome woman, so I just followed her. She was completely brilliant. She just cut through, we didn't have time to be namby pamby. It was the most-- I still don't know really what I have learned from that. I realise that I do have a massive ego. So I'm a liar, a thief, I'm a cheat, I'm egotistical. But within the whole world of disability and the cuts and everything, there is no place for ego, really. It is very, very grounding place to work. You have to get real always. So I do know that I'm still on that journey to still use the art to dismantle barriers. I know that I will never know all that I need to know, because none of us ever do. But I just want to end with a quote that Stephen Hawking gave when we first went to meet him to ask whether he would be in our show. The first quote he came up with is ‘Don't look down, look up at the world around you, be curious’ and I think that's all any of us can do. I will shut up now.