Miss-Delectable
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The Enquirer - 'Miracle Worker' works well onstage
"The Miracle Worker,” which runs through Dec. 9 at Ovation Theatre is the rare “issues” play; it manages to enlighten without being preachy.
It’s an intimate glimpse inside a family wrestling with how to raise a disabled child and the unfairness to the others when one family member is so clearly disadvantaged and requires such a disproportionate level of care that the whole family suffers.
It’s a great theater piece for third through eighth graders seeing this play out in a classroom setting with disabled classmates and wondering how fair is it when a disabled student gets special treatment, assignments, or technology.
“The Miracle Worker” by William Gibson is the story of Helen Keller, who suffered a fever as a baby and lost her sight and hearing and did not learn to speak or communicate until a special teacher arrived.
“Is it possible to teach a deaf, blind child half of what an ordinary child might know?”
Helen’s anxious parents ask the governess when she arrives at their rural Southern farm to teach their daughter, Helen (Sydney Ashe).
“Learning is to the mind more than light is to the eye,” teacher Annie Sullivan (Katey Blood) responds with passion.
Family tensions reach a crisis point when their blind child knocks over the baby in its bassinette during a tantrum, and the Keller family wonders if there is no recourse but to give up on Helen and institutionalize her for the safety of the family. Mother (Heidi Anderson) coddles Helen through tirades while Captain Keller (Don Volpenhein) isn’t sure the child has a functioning intellect because she can’t even communicate.
“Just because a person doesn’t speak correctly or has a behavioral problem doesn’t mean they’re not intelligent,” explains Gregory Ernst, executive director at St. Rita School for the Deaf who happened to be seated in the aisle next to me along with Peggy Kenney, a 34-year veteran teacher of disabled students.
Clearly, these educators were impassioned teachers of disabled children and reveled in sharing teaching and technology advances during their decades in the classroom with me during the intermission. This is one of Kenney’s favorite plays – and she also teaches drama to high school students. “I always enjoy the water pump scene where the light comes on for Helen and she grasps the meaning of language and how to communicate with the world,” she said.
By age 24, Helen Keller graduated magna cum laude from Radcliffe and went on to become an author, national advocate and speaker for the disabled.
This is a great first social issues play to take young children to see and sure to raise some interesting family dialogue on the way home.
If You Go
Ovation Theatre’s “Miracle Worker” by William Gibson, directed by Alana Ghent
Run: 8 p.m. Friday and Saturday, and Dec.7,8; 2 p.m. Dec. 9 at the Aronoff Center, Jarson-Kaplan Theater
Tickets: $18, $14 students by calling 621-ARTS or online at Ovation Theatre Company
"The Miracle Worker,” which runs through Dec. 9 at Ovation Theatre is the rare “issues” play; it manages to enlighten without being preachy.
It’s an intimate glimpse inside a family wrestling with how to raise a disabled child and the unfairness to the others when one family member is so clearly disadvantaged and requires such a disproportionate level of care that the whole family suffers.
It’s a great theater piece for third through eighth graders seeing this play out in a classroom setting with disabled classmates and wondering how fair is it when a disabled student gets special treatment, assignments, or technology.
“The Miracle Worker” by William Gibson is the story of Helen Keller, who suffered a fever as a baby and lost her sight and hearing and did not learn to speak or communicate until a special teacher arrived.
“Is it possible to teach a deaf, blind child half of what an ordinary child might know?”
Helen’s anxious parents ask the governess when she arrives at their rural Southern farm to teach their daughter, Helen (Sydney Ashe).
“Learning is to the mind more than light is to the eye,” teacher Annie Sullivan (Katey Blood) responds with passion.
Family tensions reach a crisis point when their blind child knocks over the baby in its bassinette during a tantrum, and the Keller family wonders if there is no recourse but to give up on Helen and institutionalize her for the safety of the family. Mother (Heidi Anderson) coddles Helen through tirades while Captain Keller (Don Volpenhein) isn’t sure the child has a functioning intellect because she can’t even communicate.
“Just because a person doesn’t speak correctly or has a behavioral problem doesn’t mean they’re not intelligent,” explains Gregory Ernst, executive director at St. Rita School for the Deaf who happened to be seated in the aisle next to me along with Peggy Kenney, a 34-year veteran teacher of disabled students.
Clearly, these educators were impassioned teachers of disabled children and reveled in sharing teaching and technology advances during their decades in the classroom with me during the intermission. This is one of Kenney’s favorite plays – and she also teaches drama to high school students. “I always enjoy the water pump scene where the light comes on for Helen and she grasps the meaning of language and how to communicate with the world,” she said.
By age 24, Helen Keller graduated magna cum laude from Radcliffe and went on to become an author, national advocate and speaker for the disabled.
This is a great first social issues play to take young children to see and sure to raise some interesting family dialogue on the way home.
If You Go
Ovation Theatre’s “Miracle Worker” by William Gibson, directed by Alana Ghent
Run: 8 p.m. Friday and Saturday, and Dec.7,8; 2 p.m. Dec. 9 at the Aronoff Center, Jarson-Kaplan Theater
Tickets: $18, $14 students by calling 621-ARTS or online at Ovation Theatre Company