["The Miracle Worker"] could scarcely be nobler, or more squarely affirm the dignity of our wayward species. [William Gibson] does not sentimentalize the struggle between Annie and her charge. Chairs are flung about, plates smashed, arms wrenched, and faces slapped;… the combat could hardly be more violent…. Yet apart from the moment when [Helen Keller sniffing and groping, met Annie Sullivan] for the first time, I was unmoved throughout. A few years back, I saw a documentary film about handicapped children. It was called "Thursday's Children," and it touched me more deeply inside ten minutes than "The Miracle Worker" did in two and a half hours.
My resistance to Mr. Gibson's play is partly due to the fact that it shocked me. It is, to begin with, very nearly describable as a barrel of laughs; some of the stage business that has been worked out for the child borders closely on the cute, and her guardian seldom lets a line go by without a snappy, indomitable Irish comeback. You feel that an agonizing process is being sweetened, discreetly softened, and made publicly palatable…. Helen's family consists of an irascible father, [a wailing mother, and a scapegrace half brother],… all of whom behave like characters out of a bad nineteenth-century play. Stereotypes themselves, they cast doubt on other aspects of the piece, which may, for all I know, be authentic. By the end of the second act, Annie Sullivan has taught her pupil to sit at table and fold her napkin. Just before the final curtain, she brings off a much greater feat; Helen learns to connect physical objects with the digital symbols that spell out their names. But a few seconds afterward, with no aid from her tutor, the child manages the infinitely harder jump from finger talk to speech; pronounces the word "water." This certainly ends the play with a decisive thump, yet Mr. Gibson did not convince me that it happened like that—so swiftly, so simply, so conveniently. The events he is handling are too delicate to be submitted to Broadway tailoring, however well-intentioned. Perhaps inevitably, there hangs over the whole production a faint aura of exploitation. (pp. 132-34)
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