Double Strength Success Of Civic Theatre’s ‘Miracle Worker’ Carried By The Talents Of Two Lead Actors
“The Miracle Worker,” Spokane Civic Theatre, Friday, April 4
The Spokane Civic Theatre’s revival of “The Miracle Worker,” is not a miracle, but it works.
Strong performances in the two roles that matter most - Annie Sullivan and Helen Keller - are sufficient to communicate the drama and emotion of this 1959 William Gibson play.
Even after repeated viewings - on television, on screen, on stage - this story retains the capacity to move. The taming and intellectual awakening of blind and deaf Helen Keller is a kind of a miracle.
Marilyn Langbehn as Annie Sullivan and Maia Newell-Large (a Lewis and Clark High School student) as Helen Keller are almost entirely responsible for the show’s success.
The role of Helen is not an easy one.
Newell-Large is required to spend two-plus hours grunting, moaning and in many ways acting like a wild animal.
She must fling her body around the set, stumble over chairs, fall into walls, toss pottery, and wrestle blindly with a variety of adults.
Newell-Large did an exceptional job of portraying Helen’s wildness - I was fearful for her safety at times - yet she also conveyed, quite clearly, the clever and cunning human being underneath the surface.
Through expressions and body language (the only two mediums at her disposal) she managed to communicate slyness, vindictiveness, satisfaction, sulkiness, tenderness, hate and, in the end, love. Overall, this was an excellent job by a talented and assured young actress.
Langbehn is the perfect foil for all this wild energy. She plays Annie with a headstrong stubbornness that can’t be defeated by even the most furious tantrum. Langbehn’s Annie is a blue-collar, no-nonsense Annie who knows what’s right and can’t see any point in being deflected.
Yet Langbehn doesn’t make her so stubborn as to be stolid or obtuse; this Annie is intelligent and deeply feeling, even when she know that her feelings can’t get in the way of her job.
The scene in which Helen and Annie test wills in the dining room is an outstanding piece of wordless theater.
Director Diana Trotter has a nice feel for choreographing these scenes between Annie and Helen - they are the best scenes of the play.
Unfortunately, most of the scenes with the other characters don’t work nearly as well.
The supporting players demonstrate a mish-mash of styles: The mother, Kate (Susan Smith), sports a broadly Southern accent, while the father (Pat Owens) declaims grandly in an accent that sounds like High Shakespearean.
Two actors, Bryan Cooper as James and Peter Hardie as Anagnos, apparently came into the production late (other actors were listed in their parts in the pre-show publicity), and it shows. While both did respectable jobs, it appears that they will need a few more performances to feel completely comfortable.
Trotter uses pre-recorded dialogue as a flashback technique, but she might be better off recording them again. The acting in nearly all of the pre-recorded segments sounds stilted and stiff. These flashbacks didn’t work at all for me.
These are all side issues, of course. In “The Miracle Worker,” it all comes down to Annie Sullivan and Helen Keller. In this case, the casting couldn’t have been better.
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MEMO: “The Miracle Worker” continues through April 26 at the Civic Theatre. Call 325-2507 for tickets.