Working a Miracle on "The Miracle Worker"

            The Kalamazoo Civic Theater is brave for staging The Miracle Worker, because injecting such an oft-produced play with new life can require the director and actors to become miracle workers themselves. The story is part of American mythology--every year, thousands of schoolchildren read William Gibson’s original 1957 script in English class and see six-year-old Helen Keller overcome her deafness and blindness to learn language with the help of her fiery tutor, Anne Sullivan.  There is nothing wrong with staging a well-trodden play, but familiarity can quickly turn into contempt if the production isn’t fresh.

            Director Kristen Chesnak and her cast are mostly successful in shouldering this burden. There are hiccups: the play’s sense of humor hasn’t aged gracefully in the last fifty-seven years, and Morgan Hause’s snarky reading of James causes the character to seem nasty until an abrupt, unearned change-of-heart at the very end. Also, Annie’s brother, heard only in flashbacks, is voiced more like a hectoring brat than a sick and scared child, making him a rather grating spectral presence.

            But, the production is largely enjoyable. The most powerful performance of the day came from Sofia Cronen, the talented young actress entrusted with the role of Helen. Portraying a blind and deaf character in a believable manner is a tall order, but Miss Cronen’s mannerisms—the unseeing look in her eyes, the grunts, the way she searches the blackness with her hands—remove the need for any suspension of doubt on the part of the audience. She seems deaf, blind and dumb, inhabiting Helen Keller’s dark, wordless world so truly that, when she looked out into the audience before taking her bow, she seemed to be taking in the scene for the first time.  

            Miss Cronen is a wonderful foil to Ms. Roddis, and their chemistry is apparent throughout the production, especially when Annie and Helen tussle (Fight choreographer Zac Thompson also does an excellent job of imbuing these scenes with realism and excitement). They don’t do a perfect job of showing the development of Annie and Helen’s relationship (Annie’s declaration of love for Helen seems to come out of left-field), but they do it well enough to impart real emotional heft to the play’s climatic water pump scene, even though everyone sees it coming. It may not be particularly revelatory, but it’s fresh enough to be a pleasant cap to a pleasant Sunday at the theater.