Review of The Miracle Worker    by Dennis Thompson

“The show must go on” is a famous saying in theatre that is bandied about in many contexts.  It is hard to imagine a more appropriate application than in looking at what Weathervane Playhouse has gone through recently.

Five days before the opening of their current production, The Miracle Worker, Matthew Trombetta was tragically killed in an automobile accident.  Matthew was the Managing Artistic Director of Weathervane, the company’s primary creative force.  He also was directing the play that was about to open.

The company decided Matthew would have wanted them to go on.  So Miracle Worker opened, just as his calling hours were ending with the funeral scheduled for the next morning.

The company tried to not insist their audience focus on this.  The pre- show announcements talked about their season and fund raising efforts, as always. They ended with a brief, dignified announcement about Matthew and how the evening’s performance was dedicated to him.

Then, in an action that visibly moved the company members on stage, the audience rose in a standing ovation before the show even started.  An ovation for the company that was carrying on in face of this adversity and an ovation to Matthew for his life and for all he had done for this company he loved.

What followed would have made him proud.

The Miracle Worker is William Gibson’s play about Helen Keller and her early relationship with Annie Sullivan, the young teacher who gradually led Helen out of the cocoon of her deaf/blind world.  The play premiered on Broadway in 1959 with Anne Bancroft as Sullivan and Patty Duke as Keller.  The two were also featured in the 1962 film version.

Set in Tuscumbia, Alabama in 1882 it involves the Keller family and their attempts to help young Helen as well as deal with the affect she has on their lives. Sullivan comes into their lives, a young girl of only twenty whose ideas on how to help Helen conflict with the Kellers’ inclination to appease her.  Enabling love vs. tough love, though no one thought to label these at the time.

Cherish Myers is marvelously impressive as Helen Keller.  Though not without stage experience, Myers is still of elementary school age which makes her performance even more striking.

Myers is constant motion, a physical force, but she neither over nor underplays.  She stomps in learned lunges, arms outstretched in the habit of catching herself.  She stares the way her character would, makes noises as she would, gives impish grins and thunderous tantrums. It is a wordless performance of vibrant power with an unforced naturalness.

As Annie Sullivan, Darien Crago is quietly emphatic.  She yields a natural friendliness that can quickly turn to steely resolve. She shows both her self doubt and the mask she puts on to hide it.  It’s a strong performance, the only quibble being she occasionally loses vocal power and cannot always be heard.

Myers and Crago have a strong chemistry, an acting rhythm that is almost musical.  One strong scene is at the dinner table, just the two of them, a wordless scene of several minutes, a choreographed battle of wills that is expertly staged and performed.

Nichole Hamilton is Kate Keller, Helen’s mother.  We see her balance the deference to her husband with the growing strength she feels as she comes to terms with what must be done for her daughter. We also see Kate’s unconditional love for her child and her struggle to do what she knows is best.

As Captain Keller, Helen’s father, Mark Mann is conflicted.  He is a man who always knew what to do and is faced with something he doesn’t know how to deal with.  He bounces from decisiveness to indecision, to emphatic opinions to backing off.  We see the tender love for his wife and daughter and his volatile clashes with his son.

Patrick Mullen Jr. is the son, James Keller, a likable boy timid around his father.  A minor subplot is the struggle between these two who constantly set each other off.

 It’s only one scene, but there is a group of children who play blind students and they do it just right.  Alivia Mackenzie, Avery Bank, Deborah Chow, Olivia Ortega, Ryan Reding, Taryn Huffman, and True Chin-Parker – in a moment where any one of them could have slipped into stereotype, they all play the scene with individual characteristics and complete naturalness.

Scenic Designer Mark DeLancey produces a multi-leveled playing area giving us a flow between kitchen, bedroom, and the outside world.

As Director, Trombetta took care to see the children knew what to do and how to do it, to choreograph the willful dances between Crago and Myers, to attend to the visuals, along with Lighting Designer Brian Bartlett Moore giving an ominous red hue to the bedroom in flashback scenes.

I did not know Matthew Trombetta.  The only time I had ever seen him was two weeks before, at the opening of their previous show.  He was giving the pre-show talk – a vital young man full of energy and excitement about his company. Two weeks later I see this company coping with their grief and pulling together a labor of love, a production of great heart and skill.

The close brought the second standing ovation of the evening.  The first had been one of memory and honor.  The second, deserved appreciation for quality. 

I suspect Matthew would have been touched by the first, proud of the second.

Weathervane Playhouse’s The Miracle Worker continues Wednesday through Saturday at 8 pm through June 26^th at the Weathervane Playhouse, 100 Price Road, Newark.  Tickets are $25, $23 for students and seniors.  For more information call 740-366-4616 or online at www.weathervaneplayhouse.org