Here's how it works in performance. Every line of the play is both spoken and signed. Different actors handle each, and fundamentally each role is played by two people. It would be like writing Russian with your left hand and English with your right. It may sound confusing, but Smith says it's not.
Audiences focus on the people who are moving.
The ASL actors take on this aspect, while the actors voicing the lines remain still and on the sides, sometimes in shadow. Smith insists that in fact, the end result is increased clarity. There are two planes of communication happening simultaneously. There are, of course, formidable challenges. It might surprise hearing audiences that it's the ASL interpreters who set the tempo, while the hearing actors who read Shakespeare's lines follow the physical gestures.