We saw the new production of Miracle Worker last evening.
A lovely show.
A lovely story. Brilliantly done. Loved it. Loved it.
Like with most all art, author William Gibson takes some liberties with history in service of a larger project. Still, I was sitting through the play next to the research librarian at Perkins School for the Blind (endless prayers of good will for that blessed institution…). Small things, like the ages of the characters are not quite right. And a bit bigger, Captain Keller, by most accounts a monster, gets off pretty easy in the script.
Most off is the way the remarkable Annie Sullivan discovers how to communicate with the deafblind. There is some sop to Samuel Gridley Howe, the first director of Perkins, she references her studying his writings. But, the script also flat out has Annie say no one has taught a deafblind person – until as the script unfolds, she does.
Of course she does.
But Dr Howe did it a generation before. And in subsequent years before Ms Sullivan, forever for Helen and us, Teacher, made her way to Alabama, a number of deafblind folk were liberated from the prison of a mind without language. Not scores, but a system was beginning.
And not that it wasn’t hard. Excruciatingly hard. And never before done away from Perkins School for the Blind.
I understand sliding over the fact Annie had indeed been given tools, however imperfect. I do wish they hadn’t gone a step farther. But enough on that detail.
Sullivan is one of my heroes.
Amazing guts. Fine mind. Driven. Oh, god, driven…
Exactly what it took to open Helen Keller, another figure of astonishing merit in our world.
This is a story of hope and possibility.
And, except for some flourishes here and there, dead on true.
Brilliantly put together. Great acting.
Find yourself in Manhattan, go see it.
You won’t regret it…
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