NEW YORK - There are scenes in the multi award-winning play 'Tribes', running off Broadway at the Barrow Street Theatre until January 6, that are immediately familiar.The family bickering that characterises much of the dialogue in this superbly acted and directed play is surely universal a sort of verbal white noise typical of people who live together.Christopher (Jeff Still), a retired professor who is husband to Beth (Lee Roy Rogers) and father to Daniel (Will Brill), Billy (Russell Harvard) and Ruth (Dina Thomas) observes: “It's all context and subtext”. Most of the time, this textual duality is relatively — no pun intended - benign.But sometimes what's benign turns malignant. How many families have a subtext, as the one in 'Tribes' does, that threatens to rend them apart, abruptly and painfully, with no regard to the obvious love that holds them together?The context: In this literate British family, Christopher is teaching himself Mandarin. Beth is writing a “marriage breakdown detective novel”. Their three adult children are living at home (Christopher's frustrated cry of “Why am I surrounded by my children again?” prompts a knowing laugh from the audience). Daniel is working on his master's thesis. Ruth is fretting about her pending debut as an opera singer. It's a life limned by the vagaries of the 21st century.The subtext: Christopher and Beth's other son, Billy, has been deaf from birth and has obediently followed the family's prescription for a “normal” life. No learning to sign. No attending events for the deaf. Billy reads lips expertly and speaks well. If he turns away and can't see what his parents or siblings are saying, they wave their hands in front of his face or bang a table to get his attention, never missing a beat in their judgmental commentary on each other's lives. Billy's acquiescence stabilises the family, his placidity the comforting counterpoint to the raucous verbiage swirling around him like a sand storm.“Danny's trying to find his voice,” says Beth of her anxious son as he wrestles with his thesis. “Well, he's speaking the wrong language,” snorts Christopher, who also lobs the shocker “The deaf are the Muslims of the handicapped” after he learns Billy is learning to sign.Billy's move to assert his independence — to find another “tribe” - eventually rocks his family and precipitates a crisis. His rejection of the status quo is prompted by his budding relationship with Sylvia (Meghan Mae O'Neill), the daughter of deaf parents who is losing her hearing.As Sylvia begins to teach Billy how to sign and introduces him to the deaf community, he realises how much he resents the protected life his family has created for him, driven by his father's belief that “making deafness the centre of your identity is the beginning of the end”.Suddenly, years of subtext are context.It's tempting to think that Billy's parents have created such a sheltered existence for their son because of some unspoken embarrassment about having a child who can't share their spectacularly adept facility with language. But that would be a cliché, and one of the marvels of 'Tribes' is that, in telling the story of how a family responds to a crisis, playwright, director and cast have avoided clichés.During a scene of raw, almost unbearable honesty, Sylvia tells Christopher, Beth, Daniel and Ruth that “Billy has decided to stop talking to you. He's spent his life trying to understand you. Now it's your turn to understand him”. Sylvia continues to speak for Billy as he signs what it has been like to be sequestered from the reality of life.“This is the first time you've ever listened to me, and I'm not talking,” Sylvia proclaims on Billy's behalf as his hands and fingers punctuate the air.His family are genuinely, profoundly shocked. “This is what you wanted!” protests his sister. “We didn't want you to be hurt!” cries his mother.“We loved you the most,” sobs Danny, who ultimately is reduced to a stuttering shadow haunted by voices only he can hear. He is speaking the truth, and it cuts to the core.The poignancy of this particular scene is underscored by Sylvia's growing terror as her hearing loss progresses. As she advocates for Billy's right to explore the deaf community on his terms, this intelligent, articulate young woman rails against joining him there.All of this unfolds in the199-seat Barrow Street Theatre, an intimate space in historic Greenwich House in New York's West Village. The play, written by Oxford graduate Nina Raine and directed by American David Cromer, is staged in the round.The set, designed by Scott Pask, perfectly captures the lifestyle of a Bohemian family tethered together by a love of words — spoken, written or sung. An esoteric collection of books is piled on end tables beside low-slung armchairs. Navajo and Persian throw rugs overlap on the wooden floor. Unmatched chairs surround a refectory-style dining table.When either Billy or Sylvia use sign language to communicate, subtitles are projected on edges of furniture, a blackboard behind an upright piano and near one of the theatre's exit signs.The six actors are just feet, sometimes inches, away from the audience. Every move, every glance, every breath can be seen clearly for what it is — masterful art in the hands of a masterful ensemble. The British accents presented by the all-American cast are flawless, as is each performance, particularly those of Mr Brill as Daniel, Mr Harvard, who is hearing-impaired, as Billy, and Ms O'Neill as Sylvia.There are frequent moments of belly-laugh comedy in 'Tribes'. Just as frequently, there are moments of dramatic intensity so true and pure that it's breathtaking.This is a stunning evening of theatre, one that shouldn't be missed. Any visit to New York will be enhanced and enriched by the experience.Wendy Davis Johnson is interning with The Royal Gazette as a part of the requirements of a master's degree in journalism programme she's pursuing at Harvard Extension School. She can be reached at wendydavisjohnson@fas.harvard.edu