Trash

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James Caverly and Andew Morrill’s Trash is a provocative play about two late 20s deaf roommates who have nothing in common except sharing an apartment. However, what is most intriguing about Trash is that it told in multiple ways. As the main characters are both deaf, they use American Sign Language to communicate. As a concession to hearing audiences, some of the dialogue is projected on three walls facing the audience.

Still more unusual, there is a jukebox on stage (played by Chris Ogren) which, when fed with dollar bills, translates the ASL into spoken speech. When the lead characters really want us to know what is being said they use this method. However, this is only used partially. Much of the play is told only in ASL but Caverly and Morrill are so adept (and so dramatic) at it that we often feel like we know exactly what they are saying. They also use white boards which they hold up for all to see for simple statements or questions to the audience which sometimes require answers.

The men also take polls of the audience asking them to hold up red or yellow placards they have been given on entering the theater to decide about various questions. Whoever wins the final vote determines which of two alternate endings will be performed (though the audience is not informed that there are two possible endings.) As the play progresses, the Jake and Tim become more and more aware of the audience as though they have known people who are there in the past. Four of the actors sign, Jake and Tim, and their hearing friends Carly and Nicolas. Only the policeman who appears in one flashback does not know ASL or acknowledge that he realizes that Tim is deaf when he visits the apartment on a noise complaint.

Roommates for two years, the men are opposites in most ways. Jake (Caverly) has attended Gallaudet University for five years and works as a Sorenson Video Relay Service Account Representative. Dating hearing women, he has broken up with his steady girlfriend three years ago but is currently dating a hearing blogger on deaf culture. Rather neurotic, he is emotional and quick tempered. Tim (Morrill), on the other hand, is laid back and only interested in the deaf world. Mainly living on SSI (Supplemental Security Income), he only works twice a week teaching ASL. Unknown to Jake, Tim has been having an affair with their landlord Nicolas (Vishal Vaidya) for the last 18 months which allows him a break on the rent. While Jake dresses in preppy business clothes, Tim’s usual outfit is a muscle t-shirt, blue jeans and sandals.

However, things aren’t going so well between Jake and Tim. It begins with an argument over who will take out the trash and evolves into a review of their lifestyles and journeys as deaf men. Five months before when a police officer came to their door based on a noise complaint, he did not understand that Tim only spoke in ASL. While the officer was trying to handcuff him, Tim accidentally smacked him while attempting to free his hands which he needed to sign. He is currently under house arrest and consequently cannot leave the building to take out the trash. Tim uses this as an excuse not to take out the garbage as the location changes daily.

Each claim that more of the trash is the other one’s fault. Eventually they spill it on the floor, start analyzing each item and keeping score on the huge kitchen picture window they use as a blackboard with black sharpies. This leads to arguments about the division of the rent as Jake makes a good salary, and Tim lives on subsistence. Tim then finds out that Jake is still writing to his ex-girlfriend from three years, while the used condom reveals to Jake that Tim is sleeping with the landlord and, in fact, he is not paying his share of the rent. Jake refuses to take out the garbage as he has a date with his current girlfriend Carly (Rebecca Spigelman) and does not want to get the smell on his brand-new shirt.

The downstairs neighbor keeps knocking on the floor as Jake has a tendency to stamp his foot in anger and neither of them realize that the jukebox often plays loud music they cannot hear. Carly arrives at their apartment rather than at the meeting place for the date with Jake but has an ulterior motive. She only dates deaf men as she is a screamer during sex and this keeps her from being embarrassed about her habit. Nicolas who has been stashed in the apartment through most of Tim and Jake’s argument demands that Tim move in with him after 18 months of their relationship. Eventually, Tim and Jake take a poll with the audience as to which of them should take out the trash which leads to one of the two alternate endings.

You will never be as naïve about the lives of deaf people after seeing this revealing play. Jake complains about seeing a play recently and how badly the ASL interpreter explained what was going on so that he could not follow it. Tim objects to how he is treated around hearing people: he is either ignored or assumed to be slow and placed at the children’s table. He resents that after Jake spent $80,000 on his Gallaudet degree, he was rejected from every job he applied for except one dealing with other deaf people. The police officer checking up on the noise complaint made no accommodation for the fact the Tim could not understand a word he said.

As Caverly and Morrill have often worked together in the past, they have a special rapport that goes beyond acting. Their acting styles are diametrically opposed. As Jake, Caverly is prone to explosive outbursts, signs theatrically and always wants to be in the right. Both his signing and acting are very physical while Morrill remains sedate and unflappable at all times. Morrill, on the other hand is cool, calm and collected and hard to anger. His Tim is a bit of a hustler making use of the system and using other people.

Rebecca Spigelman’s Charly is very vivacious, lighting up the stage whenever she enters. Her Charly seems to have no filters but doesn’t really shock us. Vishal Vaidya demonstrates his range playing two very different characters: landlord Nicolas who is caught between two sets of tenants and at the same time is smitten with love for Tim, as well as the police officer who works by the book. The most entertaining character is the Jukebox played by Chris Ogren whose jacket lights up in many colors when given a dollar. At the end, he gives a poignant speech about being moved from place to place and what being unplugged means to him as a kind of death. Nathaniel P. Claridad’s direction is so subtle that you would swear that we are watching real life, rather than a play enacted by actors.

The set works on a great many levels. The thrust stage which allows the audience to sit on three sides allows for varying views of Suzu Sakai’s kitchen with its dining table, chairs, refrigerator, stove and sink as well as the Jukebox which sits in the corner. The large kitchen window is used as a blackboard for both Jake and Tim. The bricked-up walls around the theater allow for Taylor Edelie Stuart’s slide projections. The costume designs by Nikolya Sereda define the characters instantly from Charly’s wild patterns to Jake’s sober shirts and jacket. Howard Ho’s sound design deals with the various voice overs for the speech of the characters. Prop designer Ellie Hart Brown has been given a good deal of work particularly with the contents of the trash which tell us about Jake and Tim’s lives.

James Caverly and Andrew Morrill’s Trash is unusual in that it lets us in on two lives that we normally would not get to understand: what it is like to be a deaf man in this day and age. Their expert rapport makes us believe that they have been uneasy roommates for years. Their signing, particularly that of Caverly, is so dramatic that it often transcends the physical motions letting us understand without knowing the American Sign Language. The story of these two men is involving while the use of polling the audience periodically keeps us caught up in the action in a way plays hardly ever do. The unexpected ending is poignant as we see the men dealing with their relationship and their future. Trash is a most exceptional and memorable play.

Trash (through March 28, 2026)

An Out of the Box Theatrics Production

Perelman Performing Arts Center (PAC NYC), 251 Fulton Street, in Manhattan

For tickets, visit http://www.pacnyc.org

Running time: one hour and 50 minutes without an intermission