Review: The Miracle Worker

By Wendy Rosenfield

for the Inquirer

There are few true American heroes whose reputations haven't tarnished with time; Helen Keller and her indefatigable teacher Annie Sullivan are two of them. Media Theatre's production of The Miracle Worker is only the latest to introduce William Gibson's adaptation of Keller's autobiography, The Story of My Life, to another generation, but it's a welcome introduction.

Gibson's take on the Keller-Sullivan relationship has seen iterations on radio, television, film (three times), and stage, the latest major revival a brief Broadway run in 2010. Perhaps the intervening years have shown Gibson's script to be a bit stiff, its characters written with a heavy hand. But at its core, the play offers a phenomenal opportunity for two actresses--an adult and a child--to turn in physical, emotionally raw performances, all while celebrating brave, brilliant women and the transformative power of language. Not a bad gig.

With the help of director Jesse Cline, Lexie Gwynn's Helen and Jennie Eisenhower's Annie do the ladies proud. Without a word, Gwynn (theatergoers may recall her as Young Cosette in Media's Les Miserables), constantly reaching, grabbing and fidgeting, captures the curiosity and frustration of a tethered mind tearing at its chains. Eisenhower's Annie shows a staunch Yankee resolve in public, even as she wrestles Helen to the floor, while crumpling with exhaustion behind closed doors. Though this supporting cast fills in all the blanks, particularly Alex Kryger as Helen's resentful half-brother James, it's Gwynn and Eisenhower's show (though both are older than their real-life counterparts, who were 6 and 20, respectively), and they hold back nothing.

Matthew Miller's set, an assortment of Victorian furniture arranged in room groupings around several open platforms, gets across the temporal point, as do K. Whitney Rogers' period costumes: fussy dresses for the women, pinafores and jumpers for the girls. It's a good, solid production, and yet there's one glaring misstep. Why, among a cast filled with talented young actors, many of whom hail from the company's own drama school, does Cline use what sounds like an adult male pretending to speak in a child's voice for voice overs portraying Annie's late brother Jimmie, who died in an almshouse at age seven? It's an easy fix, for sure, but as it stands, the voice over adds an element of the ridiculous to a show that tries very hard--and otherwise succeeds--in not crossing that line.

Playing at: Media Theatre, 104 E. State St., Media. Through Sun., Feb. 15. Tickets: $25 to $42. Information: 610-891-0100 or MediaTheatre.org