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Lessons in Laughter: An Autobiography of a Deaf Actor
To succeed as an actor is a rare feat. To succeed as a deaf actor is nothing short of amazing. Lessons in Laughter is the story of Bernard Bragg and his astonishing lifelong achievements in the performing arts. Born deaf of deaf parents, Bernard Bragg has won international renown as an actor, director, playwright, and lecturer. Lessons in Laughter recounts in stories that are humorous, painful, touching, and outrageous, the growth of his dream of using the beauty of sign language to act. He starred in his own television show “The Quiet Man,” helped found The National Theatre of the Deaf, and traveled worldwide to teach his acting methods.
- GenresNonfictionBiography
237 pages, Paperback
First published June 1, 1989
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Displaying 1 - 8 of 8 reviews
October 31, 2015
I'm glad that I was "forced" to read this for my ASL class. I really enjoyed it!
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January 16, 2024BOOK: LESSONS IN LAUGHTER: THE AUTOBIOGRAPHY OF A DEAF ACTOR, by Bernard Bragg
JEFF KEITH: I loved this book, the autobiography of a proud, activist Deaf man who worked hard for Deaf people’s cultural advancement and rights from around the 1960s until after 2000. He did this entire book in sign language and then got a translator to transcribe what he had said into English. So it’s also available on video. For some reason the book doesn’t have a Table of Contents or an index, so I made the following short outline about what’s in the various chapters.
Chapter One: The Stage Is Set: It begins with anecdotes about working on the movie “And Your Name Is Jonah,” and celebrating Bernard’s 50th birthday. Then he describes his childhood during the Depression, with two Deaf parents. His father was unemployed in NYC and went off as sort of a hobo to find work out West. Bernard got to go to a residential school for the Deaf in Manhattan, in late elementary school. He describes his teachers, good and bad, especially q wonderful Deaf English teacher named Mr. Panara.
Chapter Two: The Rehearsal: After high school, he went to Gallaudet College (now university) and got into the Drama Department under a Professor Hughes. One summer vacation, back in New York, he was forceful and managed to get a job at a summer camp in the Berkshires. Later, a young Israeli man, kind of a genius, came to Gallaudet and became Bernard’s friend. Bragg describes various love affairs that went on between his men and women friends at Gallaudet.
Chapter Three: Tryouts: Bragg got a job at a school for the Deaf in Berkeley, California that was very progressive and into “total communication.” He describes the middle-class Deaf scene in the Los Angeles area, and then teaching in Berkeley. For social life, he described mainly the love affairs of his friends. CAR CRASH, pages 89-90. MEETS MARCEL MARCEAU, 91-2 ff. He then went to France to study with Marceau, and afterwards to England. People had a big idea for a mime show in London that Bragg could help with, but he eventually couldn’t do it for lack of a visa. He returned to California, became a well-known mime, and began getting media coverage.
Chapter Four: The Premiere: This chapter is all about the National Theatre of the Deaf (NTD), which Bragg helped found in 1966 when he was around 38 years old. His fiancée Kathy said she couldn’t deal with so much competition from his professional life. He describes a lot of adventures that he had with the NTD. A member named Joe died of cancer. A woman member named Barbara had a nervous breakdown (manic episode). Bragg made a trip to the USSR (124-30).
Chapter Five: Reviews: He visited Scotland, the homeland of his grandfather. He became confused and upset over his birth certificate not calling him “Bernard.” His father used to paint, but got discouraged and stopped. There is a scene of Bragg at a Deaf banquet sitting next to a fanatically oralist man.
Chapter Six: The World Tour: The NTD did a difficult Gertrude Stein play; Bragg got discouraged because he wanted more plays by Deaf authors. He took a sabbatical and traveled around the world to help publicize the NTD. COUNTRIES: Ireland was dominated by oralist hearing people who dictated ideas to Deaf folks; those people rejected Bragg, but the Deaf people loved meeting him. Minsk, Bielorussia: He went to an international festival of Deaf performers, mainly from socialist Eastern Europe, in Brno, Czechoslovakia. The woman head of disabled affairs and Deaf affairs was hearing and had severely deformed hands, making it impossible for her to communicate with Deaf people. Japan: Bragg ended up breaking with the NTD. A young man named Michael Schwartz worked a little with NTD and was mentored by Bragg, and went on to become a teacher and a lawyer.
Chapter Seven: New Scripts: Bragg was a major advisor to the TV movie “And Your Name Is Jonah,” in the 1980s. He also helped with other Deaf-oriented plays. In Los Angeles someone helped him get the new TDD telephone apparatus. His mother had a stroke and then died. He was on the faculty at Gallaudet at the time of the “Deaf President Now” movement in 1988 and describes it, but had to be away to take care of his mother.
Chapter 8: Denouement (short, just pages 218-9): Bernard and a friend went to Connecticut to scatter his mother’s ashes on a hill that she loved. Afterwards the two of them went to a restaurant to have dinner and met the Deaf son of the proprietors. So they got to pass some “Deaf pride” on to a new generation.
JEFF KEITH: I loved this book, the autobiography of a proud, activist Deaf man who worked hard for Deaf people’s cultural advancement and rights from around the 1960s until after 2000. He did this entire book in sign language and then got a translator to transcribe what he had said into English. So it’s also available on video. For some reason the book doesn’t have a Table of Contents or an index, so I made the following short outline about what’s in the various chapters.
Chapter One: The Stage Is Set: It begins with anecdotes about working on the movie “And Your Name Is Jonah,” and celebrating Bernard’s 50th birthday. Then he describes his childhood during the Depression, with two Deaf parents. His father was unemployed in NYC and went off as sort of a hobo to find work out West. Bernard got to go to a residential school for the Deaf in Manhattan, in late elementary school. He describes his teachers, good and bad, especially q wonderful Deaf English teacher named Mr. Panara.
Chapter Two: The Rehearsal: After high school, he went to Gallaudet College (now university) and got into the Drama Department under a Professor Hughes. One summer vacation, back in New York, he was forceful and managed to get a job at a summer camp in the Berkshires. Later, a young Israeli man, kind of a genius, came to Gallaudet and became Bernard’s friend. Bragg describes various love affairs that went on between his men and women friends at Gallaudet.
Chapter Three: Tryouts: Bragg got a job at a school for the Deaf in Berkeley, California that was very progressive and into “total communication.” He describes the middle-class Deaf scene in the Los Angeles area, and then teaching in Berkeley. For social life, he described mainly the love affairs of his friends. CAR CRASH, pages 89-90. MEETS MARCEL MARCEAU, 91-2 ff. He then went to France to study with Marceau, and afterwards to England. People had a big idea for a mime show in London that Bragg could help with, but he eventually couldn’t do it for lack of a visa. He returned to California, became a well-known mime, and began getting media coverage.
Chapter Four: The Premiere: This chapter is all about the National Theatre of the Deaf (NTD), which Bragg helped found in 1966 when he was around 38 years old. His fiancée Kathy said she couldn’t deal with so much competition from his professional life. He describes a lot of adventures that he had with the NTD. A member named Joe died of cancer. A woman member named Barbara had a nervous breakdown (manic episode). Bragg made a trip to the USSR (124-30).
Chapter Five: Reviews: He visited Scotland, the homeland of his grandfather. He became confused and upset over his birth certificate not calling him “Bernard.” His father used to paint, but got discouraged and stopped. There is a scene of Bragg at a Deaf banquet sitting next to a fanatically oralist man.
Chapter Six: The World Tour: The NTD did a difficult Gertrude Stein play; Bragg got discouraged because he wanted more plays by Deaf authors. He took a sabbatical and traveled around the world to help publicize the NTD. COUNTRIES: Ireland was dominated by oralist hearing people who dictated ideas to Deaf folks; those people rejected Bragg, but the Deaf people loved meeting him. Minsk, Bielorussia: He went to an international festival of Deaf performers, mainly from socialist Eastern Europe, in Brno, Czechoslovakia. The woman head of disabled affairs and Deaf affairs was hearing and had severely deformed hands, making it impossible for her to communicate with Deaf people. Japan: Bragg ended up breaking with the NTD. A young man named Michael Schwartz worked a little with NTD and was mentored by Bragg, and went on to become a teacher and a lawyer.
Chapter Seven: New Scripts: Bragg was a major advisor to the TV movie “And Your Name Is Jonah,” in the 1980s. He also helped with other Deaf-oriented plays. In Los Angeles someone helped him get the new TDD telephone apparatus. His mother had a stroke and then died. He was on the faculty at Gallaudet at the time of the “Deaf President Now” movement in 1988 and describes it, but had to be away to take care of his mother.
Chapter 8: Denouement (short, just pages 218-9): Bernard and a friend went to Connecticut to scatter his mother’s ashes on a hill that she loved. Afterwards the two of them went to a restaurant to have dinner and met the Deaf son of the proprietors. So they got to pass some “Deaf pride” on to a new generation.
June 19, 2022
Finally I have made the time to complete this book! I have owned it for a long time, and in fact met the author many years ago, and made it a goal to read the book this summer. The autobiography is a series of anecdotes from Bragg’s experiences and is somewhat wandering, but I wish that I could have seen it as a video book instead of a book in print. Still, I enjoyed each story after a 40 plus year career in working with persons who are Deaf. The man was a groundbreaking genius in theatre and deafness.
November 26, 2021
My review is here.
June 23, 2013
Absolutely loved this book! It was hard to put down! Bernard Bragg is one of my favorites in the Deaf World, and I was interested to learn about his life. He had been mentioned in "Inside Deaf Culture" and was in "Through Deaf Eyes", both personal favorites of mine!! I would recommend this book to everyone!!
December 30, 2010
I feel like it wasn't purely an autobiography, but without explicitly saying it he explains why it isn't. I often found it hard to put down, but not like a piece of fiction. It's weird to try to explain.
March 16, 2016
great insight into deaf world and culture
February 26, 2019
Amazing book about Deaf Can! It's all written from Bragg's point of view!
Displaying 1 - 8 of 8 reviews