Review: Trash, a Pungent Comedy-Drama About Deaf Roomies

You can learn a lot about a person from what they throw away. Take it from a theater critic who moonlights as a Manhattan building superintendent. While I instinctively cringed at the unsorted recyclables featured in James Caverly and Andrew Morrill’s Trash, an Out of the Box Theatrics production now playing at PAC NYC, I instantly recognized the pungent narrative wafting from the refuse onstage.

Tim (Morrill) and Jake (Caverly) are Deaf roommates. Like a grown-up Goofus and Gallant for whom the simple morality of childhood has blurred into the messy ambivalence of adulthood, they represent starkly different perspectives on Deafness in 21^st century America.

Jake is a graduate of Gallaudet University and account manager for Sorenson. He works hard for his money and likes to spend it on expensive clothes and dates with hearing women like Carly (Rebecca Spigelman, marvelously expressive with her flipping hair and rolling eyes). She’s a social media influencer who has built her entire brand around her attraction to Deaf men—apparently because she’s a screamer.

Tim is a clever slacker happy to live on government benefits and the proceeds of his off-the-books side hustles. And why should he kill himself working within an audist society that has never made an honest effort at accessibility? He would never seriously date a hearing guy—but casual sex is entirely another matter.

When Tim asks Jake to take out the trash, Jake declines. He has a date and doesn’t want to smell like garbage. Tim raises Jake’s date by pointing to the ankle monitor he must wear for the duration of his house arrest. Their conflict spirals into a fight about unequal household chores, an attempt to recalculate the share each pays toward the rent, and finally (disgustingly) a full accounting of the items in the trash can.

But the rubbish raises more questions (and opportunities for flashbacks): Why is Jake writing love notes to his ex? Where did that used condom come from? Who is the strange man (Vishal Vaidya, a farce ninja) sneaking in and out of Tim’s bedroom? And why exactly is Tim wearing an ankle monitor?

Caverly and Morrill have genuine lived-in chemistry, the kind of dramatic shorthand and unguarded physicality that can only come from a lengthy collaboration. They brilliantly play off each other’s contrasts, with Morrill shooting the audience incredulous side-eye as Caverly explodes in operatic fits of rage.

Director Nathaniel P. Claridad stages Trash as a brisk buddy comedy on Suzu Sakai’s modest apartment set, its intimate thrust setup placing the audience on three sides and allowing for quick entrances and exits from the sides and stairs. Costume designer Nikolya Sereda gives us an instant sense of our two main characters, with Jake in a professorial blazer and Tim wearing an old muscle T-shirt. We feel Howard Ho’s aggressive sound design in our rears, especially the thud-thud-thud of a downstairs neighbor banging on the ceiling. More alarming is Annie Wiegand’s lighting, which seems to single out random audience members with a spotlight at key moments. We only learn why at the very end, and I won’t spoil it here.

But it has something to do with the jukebox (Chris Ogren), a literal music-playing machine that also magically serves as a translator to spoken English. Trash is performed mostly in American Sign Language, but when Tim or Jake really want the hearing members of the audience to know what they’re discussing, they tip the jukebox (Sereda has costumed Ogren in a snazzy black suit that lights up in many colors when he’s handed money).

Ogren delivers a memorable performance as this inanimate object, faithfully interpreting both the content and tone of Tim and Jake’s ASL while providing sly Brechtian commentary with his eyes and facial expressions. His late-play monologue about his journey from diner to bar to Deaf household is guaranteed to tug at the heartstrings of anyone with fond feelings about The Brave Little Toaster.

But our two living protagonists leave the deepest impression. Equally humorous and thoughtful, Trash is a fascinating look into the lives of Deaf men in 21^st century America, where anxiety around sex, work, and a creeping sense of obsolesce is aggravated by the daily struggle of existing in a world that has been primarily designed for the hearing majority. In this stark and perilous reality, clear and effective communication is essential. Caverly and Morrill tell a story and make it count with this surprise theatrical treasure.