Combining striking physical storytelling with dynamic projection and a soundtrack that can be felt and heard, Last Rites is a non-verbal solo show told through a Deaf man’s perspective, exploring the poignant story of a complex relationship cut short. Through vivid memory sequences, Scottish-Singaporean theatremaker and Deaf artist Ramesh Meyyappan brings to life the complexities of grief, fatherhood, and a language-divided relationship.
The show heads on a national tour from 15 January – 19 February 2025.
Last Rites draws from your shared experiences of losing your fathers and becoming fathers yourselves. How did these personal events shape the narrative and emotional core of the show, and what was the most challenging part of translating these experiences into theatre?
Yes, the loss of our fathers was something that connected us through the devising process and creation of this production – along with becoming fathers ourselves. Both of these events are life changing and highly emotional, formative experiences. One of the challenges was how to draw on these lived experiences in a way that doesn’t feel too private, inaccessible or indulgent and use it to shape a powerful story. A rigorous creative process involving outside eyes and dramaturgs was an essential part of ensuring we could get an outside perspective on the work, helping us to keep our audience in mind as we developed the piece.
The show centers on Arjun’s struggle to perform an ancient Hindu ritual while also dealing with a father who never learned sign language. How did you approach balancing the cultural and linguistic elements to ensure they resonate with a broad audience while maintaining authenticity?
In a sense, it’s about storytelling – and how you tell a story that includes all the relevant information required for an audience to fully access, understand and connect with another human being. To achieve this we had to do a lot of research, partly mining the past and memory, but then in the transposition of these memories into a story for theatre we also had to do a lot of in-depth research into Hindu ritual and mythology (much of the work didn’t end up in the show, but definitely underpins it), but also Deaf culture in India and the UK. We worked with academics, dramaturgs, BSL and ASL consultants, and made the piece over a staggered process, 11 weeks over 2 years, with multiple sharings and feedback sessions to allow time for us to weave what we were learning and discovering into the work, ensuring that what we created was authentic, and resonated broadly with audiences.
Last Rites incorporates BSL, creative captions, and physical storytelling to engage Deaf and hearing audiences alike. Can you discuss the creative process behind integrating these elements, and how they enhanced the storytelling?
The design elements of the show and our collaboration with our fantastic design and production team played a big part in breaking down linguistic and cultural barriers that exist between Deaf and hearing audiences – with sound, light, set and video projection working together seamlessly to create a culturally authentic and exciting style everyone can access.
A lot of the work centred around evoking spaces and feelings, opening up the protagonists world of memories, experiences, feelings and emotions – and crucially this is an innovative access tool as well, with captions brought to life in a beautiful vivid way and light, projection and resonant bass sound enhancing them in a rich variety of ways – audiences don’t just read the captions and see the Sign Language – they experience and feel it.
Physical storytelling can be, by its very nature, accessible – and often is. It was a joy for us to bring together our different approaches to physical storytelling and find a way for them to form one coherent style, and an integral part of the collaborative language of the production working with all of the design elements to tell Arjun’s story.
With such distinct artistic styles—Ramesh’s focus on physical theatre and George’s narrative-driven approach—how did you navigate blending these perspectives to create a cohesive vision for Last Rites?
We actually both have a focus on physical theatre and narrative, having both created many non-verbal physical pieces over nearly 2 decades, so this is part of what connects us as artists.
While we agree we have distinct artistic styles, it’s our shared love for physical theatre and storytelling/narrative that made us want to work together when we met at the Edinburgh Festival Fringe in 2010 (yes it took over 10 years for it to happen!). Blending our perspectives and approaches was a real joy. Finding a cohesive vision was part of our staggered process, always taking the time to research, develop and create with consensus every step of the way. Because we both work collaboratively it wasn’t just about us – it also involved working collaboratively with the entire creative team who brought their skills, expertise and wonderful ideas and creativity to rehearsals. The joy of collaborative devising is seeing something come together that no one person could have conceived – it’s part of why we love theatre making. And we were lucky to have an incredible team around us!
While the play is rooted in the specific experiences of a Deaf protagonist, it explores universal themes of grief, reconciliation, and parenthood. How did you ensure that the story remains relatable and evocative for audiences from all walks of life?
Bringing a historically underrepresented perspective on grief and parenthood to the stage presented us with some exciting challenges: how do you stage a story from a Deaf man’s point of view that works for both Deaf and hearing audiences? How can that story tear down the barriers between both communities and focus on our shared humanity as well as celebrating the cultural and experiential differences? These questions were a constant for us, helping us to navigate the process, steering the creative team. The medium of theatre, being a communal art form, is the perfect space in which to foster live, and very real, connections that many audiences will not have experienced before. We hope that this is what Last Rites does – stages a story that anyone can relate to, whilst also helping us all to see our common humanity where historically ‘othering’ and marginalisation have created division. Last Rites is about something many of us will experience in our lives, losing our parents and becoming parents, but not all of us are represented in these stories on our stages, screens or in mainstream culture. We hope that plays like ours can start to change that, start new conversations and develop a greater sense of empathy, understanding and compassion that brings diverse audiences together.
