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A teacher who is deaf steps out of her classroom and in front of the camera to star in a BBC drama. By Amy Gross
Born deaf into a hearing family and diagnosed at 3 years of age, Barr has worn hearing aids her entire life. Her parents taught Barr to talk so she could be mainstreamed with hearing students. Hearing aids, says Barr, were the platform that enabled her to learn to talk.
An outstanding student, Barr earned a master's degree in English literature at Edinburgh University. She taught English for a year at an inner-city school in South London for children ages 11 through 16. "There were times that they took advantage of my deafness, as children will do," Barr says. "But teaching is about creating a balance between a disciplined environment and ensuring that pupils are rewarded for working hard and being enthused about their subject no easy feat with English these days."
She read voraciously as a child, which inspired her to bring stories to life. "Acting was something I was involved in from a very young age. It helped me develop my speech and social rules of behavior," says Barr, who studied acting both in and out of school.
Barr's Big Break
In the summer of 2009,a university friend who was working for a television production company asked Barr to audition for a deaf role in the project they were working on. To her surprise, she got the part. She played a deaf nurse in a 30-minute comedy pilot called "The Amazing Dermot" with Rhys Darby, of Flight of the Con chords fame."I loved filming. I had the time of my life," Barr says. "And it was really tough to turn my back on acting again and go back to school."
The same friend contacted her a few weeks later saying that someone had asked for her details for another part. She received an email with the subject line: "BBC drama series, 'The Silence.' " "My life changed forever," Barr says.
Within two weeks of nabbing the role of Amelia Edwards, Barr was flown to Dublin to start filming.Her cast mates included two stars from the movie "Notting Hill," Gina McKee and Hugh Bonneville, and well-established BBC actors Dervla Kirwan and Douglas Henshall.
"My biggest challenge was taking on the responsibility of playing the lead role in a BBC drama series having never been a professional actor before," says Barr. Her character, an18-year-old girl who recently received cochlear implants (CI) and who is coming to terms with her new found hearing abilities, witnesses a murder that her uncle, a police detective, subsequently investigates.
"Amelia faces immense challenges with her CI, and not only because the concept of sound is a completely new and bewildering experience for her," says Barr. Amelia is under pressure from her parents to be more "hearing" and to lose the one method of communication she has always relied upon: sign language. She is also a typical rebellious teenager, who smokes on the sly and sneaks out to clubs with her hearing cousins.
Barr, who was 23 at the time of filming, had her own share of challenges on set. "Every day, I would wake up around 6 a.m. to be driven to the set, having learned my line sthe night before," she says. "Before we started each scene, we would run through it with the director [award-winning director Dearbhla Walsh] before performing it in front of the crew. Once we'd done a million takes, the process would start again and I would get home at 10 p.m. to learn my lines all over again."
Because her character used sign, Barr also had to rapidly learn to copy the signs used in the script.And since Amelia, the character, was also a CI wearer, there were times Barr(who does not have CIs) couldn't wear her hearing aids on set. "I kept them in for rehearsals and took them out for filming," she says. "It actually helped me focus amidst the chaos that working on a set brings."
Her biggest acting challenge on "The Silence"? "Having to cry for the first time on screen was an intimidating experience for me I wasn't sure I would be able to cry on cue for hours!" Barr says. "However, getting through that really gave me the confidence in myself that I could do whatever came my way for the rest of the shooting period."
Praise and Criticism
Barr plays an 18-year-old girl who recently received cochlear implants and who is coming to terms with her new found hearing abilities.
With cochlear implantation still a sensitive subject within the Deaf community, it was inevitable that "The Silence" might garner some discussion from those who have the technology themselves, and from those who eschew it. Misperceptions about how CIs work that Amelia still has to learn to hear despite being able to hear are woven into the plot, along with Amelia's adjustment to her CIs. Amelia clearly has a love/hate relationship with her new CIs, enjoying conversation and flirting with young men, but turning them off during a boisterous birthday party and whenever she wants to "tune out."
"I do hear from deaf people regarding my role in 'The Silence,'" Barr says. "Most of the letters I received tended to be positive about my performance and about how delighted they were that the BBC commissioned a series that explored deafness so strongly."
Any negative feedback she takes in stride. Some people posting on Deaf forums said Barr's portrayal of a new CI wearer was often inaccurate. Others felt it was dead on. Says Barr,who knows CI wearers and did her own research for the role: "I feel that the awareness it brought to the mainstream audience of the deaf community and issues within it far surpassed any inaccuracy or controversy within the context of the story and filming."
Since "The Silence"aired last March, Barr has been undergoing speech therapy to enable her to play more versatile roles, including hearing roles. And although she no longer teaches, she volunteers at one school and tutors several students in her spare time. She also works with an organization called Common Purpose, whose goal is to enroll more than 300 disabled students through a leadership course over the next three years.
Until the next big role comes her way, Barr, now 26, lives in London with a group of friends from college. A competitive athlete in her school days (she played lacrosse and rounders, a game similar to baseball), she has recently discovered women's rugby. Not surprisingly, she loves movies, reading, writing and, like her BBC character Amelia, going out on weekends with friends.
"Watch this space,"says Barr. Big things may be happening soon for this young actress.
Amy Gross is a staff writer.
{Clips of Barr starring in "The Silence" are available on YouTube.com. Search "GenevieveBarr."}
