Peter Birnie - Vancouver Sun: Meg Roe continues her campaign to breath new life into live theatre. The Playhouse opens its 47th season with a luminous production of The Miracle Worker, a play quite capable
- Jennifer Clement, Tom Butler, Anna Cummer (Photo: David Cooper)
of choking on its dust but given a sparkling showcase by the diminutive director. more…
Colin Thomas - Georgia Straight: There’s some beautiful work—and there are some big holes—in the Playhouse production of The Miracle Worker. more…
Read Colin Thomas’ interview with Meg Roe here
3 Comments
I found the play both informative and well done. I learned about Helen Keller while seeing her story played out with brilliant elements, including a revolving stage and Annie Sullivan’s torture at the hands of her memories. As well as that, the acting was simply amazing, and displays the high syandards of the playhouse theater.
I cannot imagine there would be many greater challenges than to bring to life a play of this magnitude, and beyond that to captivate its audience. This is no lighthearted, comical romp of a play, using satire and sarcasm to carry it to our hearts; instead, this is a deep and dark foray into a difficult life in a difficult time. The Miracle Worker is composed more of desperation and despair than of hope and healing, and it demands a level of emotional involvement from its viewers that will challenge even the hardest of hearts, and yet it’s power and energy defy anyone to resist its enticement.
It is no easy task to embody a character whose emotions have been twisted and pulled to their breaking point, because in order to do it justice the actor must allow him or herself to embrace that fear and confusion and make it his or her own. The cast of the Miracle Worker take themselves to the edge of that abyss, and carry their audience with them, and there is no mercy asked or given at any time. The characters in this play are fully alive in their fear, doubt, anger, and blame, and they seem to do it effortlessly. In particular, Emma Grabinsky, one of the two young women who plays Helen Keller, displays depths of emotional maturity and insight beyond what one would expect of a young teen. She embodies a character who cannot see, cannot speak, and is tormented by her inability to communicate in any meaningful way, and through all of those same restrictions that encumber the actress as much as the character, Miss Grabinsky brings every smallest nuance to life. We quite literally share her heartache, her frustration, her anger, and underneath everything her desperate loss of hope, as Helen is brought to life by this amazing and gifted young actress.
Is there anyone who goes to see an unrelentingly deep and haunting play such as this one and expects to be entranced and emotionally elevated? Perhaps there are people like that, but I confess I was not one of them. Miss Grabinsky and the rest of the amazing cast made a believer out of me, that in the words of Spider Robinson, “shared joy is increased, and shared pain is diminished”. The Miracle Worker is a powerful expression of the emotional challenges of life, and I would strongly recommend experiencing what it has to offer for yourself.
We went to see The Miracle Worker last evening and WOW! We were thoroughly entertained!
The performance delivered by each actor was so engaging from the moment it started.
Thankyou to the cast and crew for an outstanding evening at the Playhouse.
You all deserved the standing ovation you received and more.
With a heartfelt thank you, Bob and Leslie Scragg