‘Miracle Worker’ Fails to Communicate Its Lessons to the Cast

ORANGE —  Although notions of sight and sound are meant to capture our attention in William Gibson’s drama “The Miracle Worker,” they take on a different, unintended meaning at the Ensemble Theatre.

Any revival of this old-fashioned, life-affirming account of blind and deaf Helen Keller’s victory over darkness should, at the least, be watchable and listenable. Not only is director Roosevelt Blankenship Jr.’s production unkind to the eye and ear, but the sheer number of pesky problems takes us almost totally out of Gibson’s humanistic orbit.

Gibson is telling a double story. The first is of Anne Sullivan (Christi Sweeney) and her ceaseless efforts to teach Helen words and language, the key to her personal liberation--and, thus, a playwright’s perfect theme.

The second tells of the Keller family’s rocky efforts to learn to live with Helen, to understand Sullivan’s uncompromising methods and to strike a peace pact within the family unit (especially between authoritarian Capt. Keller, played by Paul Connelly, and his cowed son, played by Mike Smith).

Gibson’s device to track these stories is simultaneous stage action--Helen and Sullivan stage left, for instance, and the family feud stage right. The Ensemble’s impossibly wide and shallow stage area makes for dreadful sight lines; crucial moments between teacher and pupil, or the captain and his wife, Kate (Kimetra Flowers), can be unviewable, depending on your seat.

*

And even when the actors aren’t hidden, they’re still mostly in the dark due to the (uncredited) murky lights--sometimes one light for an entire scene. This, combined with poorly taped recordings of Sullivan’s flashbacks to her blind childhood, place blinders and mufflers on the play.

*

The production’s haplessness nearly wipes out the effects of the good, honest work by Sweeney as Sullivan and Alice Gasparian as Helen. Though the real Helen was a child, the tall, commanding Gasparian plays her as a symbolic creature, gradually shedding wildness for civility. Sweeney goes in and out of her Irish accent but gamely dramatizes her message-laden dialogue.

Their colleagues, alas, are just not ready for prime time. Flowers seems, incredibly, to be younger than Gasparian, and Connelly is all bluster and no blood. Smith seems like one of the “Melrose Place” guys time-warped back into Keller’s era.

* “The Miracle Worker,” Ensemble Theatre, 844 E. Lincoln Ave., Orange. Thursday-Saturday, 8 p.m. Ends May 13. $12-$15. (714) 998-2670. Running time: 2 hours, 25 minutes.

(BEGIN TEXT OF INFOBOX / INFOGRAPHIC)

Alice Gasparian: Helen Keller

Christi Sweeney: Anne Sullivan

Paul Connelly: Capt. Keller

Kimetra Flowers: Kate Keller

Mike Smith: James Keller

Louis Hale: Viney/Anagnos

Judy Kirby: Aunt Ev

Roosevelt Blankenship III: Percy

Norman Cleary: Doctor

An Ensemble Theatre production of a play by William Gibson, directed by Roosevelt Blankenship Jr.