SINGAPORE — For the past few months, young actor Thomas Pang has been enjoying the silence. The recent LASALLE College of the Arts graduate had spent the evenings wearing noise-cancelling earplugs in preparation for Pangdemonium Productions’ latest play Tribes, where he takes on the role of a deaf person.

“I tried to get around as much as possible wearing those. But you really had to look both ways to cross the road. It heightened my visual experience and I noticed details I would never see before — buildings, interactions with people. It’s like everything slows down,” he said, before adding: “But having these weird things in my ears, and having people look at me (in a different way) gave me a feeling of being a little bit isolated, which was both a peaceful and a lonely experience.”

In the Nina Raine play, he plays Billy, the sole deaf member of a rather vocal family (his siblings include an aspiring opera singer and a speech expert). He falls in love with a woman named Sylvia, played by Ethel Yap, who is also slowly losing her hearing.

Not only did Pang immerse himself in the silent world of deaf people, he and Yap also took sign language lessons under deaf social entrepreneur Lily Goh, the co-founder of the deaf percussion group ExtraOrdinary Horizons.

“We met twice a week and it was pretty consistent,” recalled Yap. “In our first lesson, Lily shared what it was like to live as a deaf person and having to deal with things like doorbells and alarm clocks ... then we launched into learning the alphabet, numbers and more grammatical things.”

While the deaf characters do add a unique element to Tribes, director Tracie Pang (no relation to the young actor) said it was the story as a whole that attracted her.

“The storyline is just strong and funny and heartbreaking at the same time. I really wanted to tell the story of this family, go at it (in this way), instead of the issue of the deaf communities as the ‘reason’ for doing it,” she said.

But of course, they had to get things right. Aside from roping in Goh to teach sign language, the group also worked with The Singapore Association for the Deaf. Five shows will also incorporate the presence of three sign language interpreters to allow members of the deaf community to watch the show too.

“Once we made the decision (to do the play), we were very keen to speak to people in the deaf community. We wanted to make sure we did our utmost to portray the characters correctly and the problems they faced,” said Tracie, who recalled speaking to a Malay man who had been deaf since he was three. “As a child, he went to learn sign language, which was in English. So his mother then had to learn English sign language in order to be able to communicate with his son. The lengths a family goes through to communicate was interesting.”

From a directorial point of view, having actors perform sign language instead of speaking their lines also posed a bit of a challenge. “It has affected the way I ‘block’ a piece — you have a character who, in order for him to know what’s going on, has to be looked at all the time. You can’t talk from another room or turn your back on him at any point in time,” she said.

The experience had been an eye-opener for the two young performers. While technology has played a part in making things easier for deaf people, it can only do so much in terms of human connections, reckoned Yap.

“I think technology can only do so much to help you functionally get by day to day, but what deaf people really experience a lack of is social interaction with hearing people. Technology can get from point A to B, let you know which bus to take, but it can’t help you have a deep connection with other people. Language is essential to connect and forge emotional ties with each other,” she said.

“I don’t think it’s at the forefront of public consciousness — there are juicier issues out there at the moment that have captured the public’s imagination, like sexual or religious freedom, but the play is important in terms of making people understand that there are also pockets in society that we haven’t reached out to, simply through inattention,” said Pang, who now thinks he can hold basic conversations using sign language — which, on a lighter note, he recommended as something that could very well have its uses during noisy theatre rehearsals. “The rehearsals can be going on and Ethel and I will be doing sign language across the room!”

Tribes runs from May 22 to June 7, 8pm, Drama Centre Theatre. With 3pm weekend matinees. Tickets from S$30 to S$70 at SISTIC. Advisory 16: Coarse language.