Immigration Stories: Speechless by Linda Brogan and Polly Teale

Inis Nua Theatre Company’s Immigration Stories reading series features Speechless by Polly Teale and Linda Brogan on Monday, May 1, at 7:00 pm in the Proscenium Theater at the Drake.  First produced by Shared Experience and Sherman Cymru in Cardiff at the Chapter Arts Centre, Speechless is the extraordinary story of June and Jennifer Gibbons, the children of immigrants from Barbados living in Wales. Diagnosed as “elective mutes”, these identical twins build their own intense and secret world, speaking to each other in their own private language but refusing to communicate with anyone else. Based on a true story related in the book The Silent Twins by Marjorie Wallace, Speechless was called “a story of stark and stunning oddness” by The Independent, as well as “brilliant, bleak, but redemptive.” Tickets are on sale for $10 by calling (215) 454-9776 or visiting inisnuatheatre.org. Immigration Stories is supported by a grant from the Virginia Brown Martin Fund of The Philadelphia Foundation.