Pride and Prejudice in ASL

This is my idea

A few days ago, as I was cycling home from rehearsal late at night, I was thinking about DWSA (Deaf West Spring Awakening). For those of you who don't know what that is, it's a production of the pre-existing musical Spring Awakening, in which half of the characters are played by deaf actors, and half are played by hearing actors. If a role is played by hearing or a deaf actor says something about the character. For example, in scenes where there's a miscommunication, there is usually one deaf and one hearing character onstage. The entire show is done in both spoken English and ASL (American Sign Language), and whenever one of those languages is missing in a scene, surtitles are being projected somewhere on the set. This way, the entire show is accessible for both deaf and hearing people.

So what does all this have to do with the Lizzie Bennet Diaries? Well, I was thinking you could do LBD with a partially deaf, partially hearing cast. The concept seems to work extremely well for this particular story, especially for a character like Lydia. She is constantly struggling to voice her true feelings, and can't seem to make the other characters hear her cry for help. Her struggle could be made quite literal by Lydia not being able to talk.

Here's what characters I think would be deaf and hearing and why:
- Lizzie would be deaf or HoH (hard of hearing), but fully capable of speaking. She might have grown deaf later in life, making English her first language, and ASL her second. She could also have a cochlear implant which allows her to hear enough to learn English, even though ASL is her first language. I think this suits her because she talks a lot about the people around her, but doesn't always realise what is truly going on. This way she becomes the literal personification of the line "You've got the talking down, just not the listening." from the song King Of Anything by Sara Bareilles.
- Lydia would be fully deaf, and also not capable of speaking. This makes it even harder for her to make the people around her notice her, as her language isn't anyone else's first language, and some people don't know it at all. Her "loud" persona would be even more needed to make people like Lizzie notice her. It would also mean that she is now physically incapable of saying no to a hearing person. That's not directly relevant to the story, but it does change her relationship with guys like Brent and Wickham. Carters in this version could be a deaf club, which would explain why Lydia feels so at ease there. It's one of the only places where everyone speaks her language.
- Jane would be hearing, but, growing up with two deaf sisters, she would be fluent in ASL. It makes sense to me that Jane would be hearing because she is always looking out for the other people in her life. She's always got her ears open, if you may.
- Charlotte would also be hearing but fluent in ASL. She is much less idealistic than Lizzie, she sees the world in a way more realistic light.
- I'm not too sure about Darcy, but I think he would be deaf or HoH because he is very similar to Lizzie. He could also just be high-functioning autistic. There are many similarities between the problems deaf and autistic people face. We both struggle with communicating, we're more direct than hearing/neurotypical peoples, and we both are overstimulated often, which can lead to exhaustion and social isolation. So he and Lizzie can find common ground there even if he is hearing. Either way, I think he can talk but prefers not to. He probably knows both English and ASL.
- Bing could be either. He could be deaf because he is deaf to Jane's obvious love for him and he allows himself to be guided by Darcy and Caroline's poor judgement, but I also like the idea of him and Jane both being hearing. Either way, he'd know both English and ASL. Even if he were hearing, Bing is the kind of person that would learn ASL just because he finds it important to be able to understand everyone.
- Caroline would be hearing, and she wouldn't care to learn ASL either. Lizzie could be depending on lipreading/hearing aids in her videos with Caroline, and the videos could show all the complications and miscommunications that come with that.
- Mr Collins would be one of those annoying hearing people that talks way too fast, looks everywhere except for at you, and always finds the spots with the WORST lighting to talk to you. He also wouldn't know a thing about ASL or Deaf culture.
- Cousin Mary would be hearing and know ASL. She already is Lydia's "voice of reason", it would only make sense for her to voice/interpret for Lydia in Lydia's videos.
- Wickham would also be hearing and know ASL. This could make him manipulating Lydia even worse. Leaving significant details out when translating something for her/twisting the story in his favour, refusing to look at her when she is trying to say something, things like that. He also gets metaphorical control over what she's saying when he's interpreting for her, as he is the one speaking her words.
- Gigi could be either. My first instinct was to make her deaf to make her even more similar to Lydia, but she could also be hearing because she's the only one who truly understands what Wickham is capable of. If Darcy would be hearing, her being deaf could also be a reason for him to know sign language.
- I honestly don't know what I would do for Fitz. I don't know the character well enough.

In DWSA, every character played by a deaf actor has a hearing actor playing "their voice". They speak the lines the character signs, as well as have the symbolic role of being the character's subconscious. Much as I love this concept, I don't think it suits this particular idea because it doesn't fit the "homemade" vibe of LBD. Thus far, there is only one character who doesn't talk at all in the show, and that is Lydia. Her sisters and cousin Mary can voice/interpret for her when they're together, and in Lydia's own videos she can sign and add subtitles. Something similar can be done for Darcy, Bing, Gigi and Fitz if they become non-talking characters. Caroline and Mr Collins can be subtitled as well because they don't sign.

I like this because this would mean that Lydia literally loses her voice when she is alone. And who does she meet when she is alone? That's right, George Wickham. I'm imagining Wickham voices for her in the videos they do together, giving him even more control over what she is saying. He can also literally ignore her at points, in an even more painful to watch version of ghosting. Imagine:
George: *speaking as well as signing* "But I guess you'd rather be by yourself, so-"
Lydia: *signing* "No, no, no, please- please don't go, don't go, please. I..."
George: *ignoring her / not voicing*
Lydia: *signing* "I didn't mean it like that! You have to believe me. It's just, uhm, she's my sister. But you- I wouldn't listen to her if she said that- she won't!- but I wouldn't."
George: *speaking as well as signing* "You wouldn't?"
Lydia: *signing* "I wouldn't."
George: *starts voicing for her again*

The subtitles can be used to say a lot about the character's relationships as well. If Lydia says something in sign language on Lizzie's vlogs, and the other person on screen doesn't catch on/translate it, it's not captioned because Lizzie doesn't realise it's important to Lydia that small things like that are translated as well. Larger bits are captioned properly. When Lydia signs on her own vlogs, of course, it's captioned. With lots of emojis, caps-lock, exclamation marks, and funny notes for good measure. Then near the end of Lydia's vlogs, when Wickham is in pretty much full control of Lydia, it's not captioned anymore. She's stopped caring. Lydia's last video is captioned, but the emojis, caps-lock, exclamation marks, and funny notes are gone. When Lydia hijacks one of Lizzie's vlogs, it's captioned as well. You can tell by the way it's captioned if Lydia did it herself, or if she tricked Charlotte into doing it for her.

So yeah, this is my idea thus far. I'm a little worried that my reasoning for which character is hearing and which character is deaf is too ableist or not a good representation of the deaf experience as I'm not deaf myself. I also don't know enough deaf/HoH people who can act and fit these particular characters. So if I were to make this, I would need to do a casting and everything, and that's a bit much for just fan videos. I could also ditch the vlogging concept and turn this thing back into a genuine Pride and Prejudice adaptation. It could be a film or a play just fine. Then I could do it professionally. But then again, I feel like what works best in this concept, Lydia's arc, is mostly created by the Lizzie Bennet Diaries. I think it wouldn't work half as well with the original Pride and Prejudice. So I'm not 100% what I'm going to do with this concept if I'm ever going to make it. I feel like it has potential, but it definitely isn't something that I can make yet, and there are multiple directions in which I could take this.

Let me know what you think, I'd love to hear your feedback! Do you have any additional ideas I could use? Would you like to see me make something like this? Should I drop this project altogether? It's currently in a phase where I can still go any way I'd like with it, so I'd love to hear even the most outrageous of ideas!

FOOTNOTE: I use English and ASL in this concept, but if I were to make it myself, I would probably use Dutch and NGT (Dutch Sign Language) because I live in the Netherlands. I don't know ASL, and I'm probably not going to find any actors near me who do. It would still have English subtitles, to make it accessible for international viewers. Moving the setting to the Netherlands would have some impact on the story though, so adaptational changes would need to be made. Though I'm sure I could easily work around that while translating and rewriting the script.