by Annette Hinkle
Last year, Bay Street Theatre kicked off an educational initiative called Literature Live! with a presentation of “The Diary of Anne Frank.” The program is geared toward middle and high school students, and it takes stories right out of the pages of books and brings them to life on stage with professional actors.
While most teens today are absorbed by text, tweet and email, Literature Live! is all about focusing on communicating the old fashioned way — through theater. The performances can be eye openers for today’s youth, as they highlight the struggles and determination of young people from an earlier era who often overcame monumental hardships without the benefit of modern technology or a forward thinking society.
This year’s Literature Live! program, which runs November 8 to 20 at Bay Street, is “The Miracle Worker,” William Gibson’s play about young Helen Keller and her teacher, Annie Sullivan. Performances will be scheduled weekdays for school audiences, and in the evening on weekends for adults and families. Issues raised in the play will be part of post-theatrical discussions with the audience.
While most people are familiar with the story of Helen Keller, the deaf and blind girl who lived in isolation in her own world until Annie Sullivan managed to break through the barriers and communicate with the child, the details of their lives is often not so widely known.
The Keller family lived in Alabama, and Helen, who was born in 1880, did not become blind and deaf until she was 19 months old. It is believed that a bout of scarlet fever may have led to her condition. But prior to being stricken, Helen’s parents, Kate and Arthur, had seen the little girl’s intelligence and felt that someone must be able to reach her in the darkness and silence.
For Ken Forman, who plays Arthur, one of the things that has come as a revelation with this role is the desperation the Keller household must have felt with Helen’s condition. In an era when most deaf and blind children were shipped off to asylums for the rest of their lives, it is a testament to the lengths the family went in order to seek out help for their daughter.
“From what I’ve seen in my reading, she’s [Helen] six years old and kind of this monster, and the fear for the family is what if she gets older and is still like that,” notes Forman. “That hadn’t occurred to me before. She’s always incredibly angry and throwing temper tantrums. Helen has this huge behavioral problem.”
The Kellers began their search for a teacher after Kate read an account of the education of a deaf and blind child written by Charles Dickens in his travelogue “American Notes.” That search ultimately led them to Alexander Graham Bell. Both Bell’s wife and mother were deaf and at the time, he was an educator of deaf children. It was Bell who advised the Kellers to go to the school in Boston where the child in Dickens’ story was educated.
And it was there that they met Annie Sullivan.
“Annie Sullivan was from Massachusetts and she was blind too,” explains Forman. “She taught at the Perkins School for the Blind in Boston.”
Sullivan was 20 years old at the time. An orphan, she had been blind since the age of seven when she contracted an eye infection that went untreated.
“She grew up in the state almshouse, and had her younger brother there who she cared for, and he died,” explains Kate Gersten who plays Sullivan. “She had all these operations on her eyes to gain minimal vision. She went on to Perkins School after the almshouse where she was a troublemaker and got into fights with people.”
“She was always headstrong and never very careful,” adds Gersten. “I think she was angry about her circumstances. For Helen, she was an incredible match. If they had found some proper older woman who hit her every time she had acted out, it would have been a disaster. Annie had the motivation to do it.”
Gersten notes, however, that in the play, her character truly doesn’t know what she’s getting into when she accepts the position as Helen’s teacher.
“She just knows that there’s a child no one has been able to get through to,” explains Gersten. “This is Annie’s only shot at doing anything. Her vision is minimal and she has no prospects except for this. It’s a seemingly impossible task. When she comes up to Helen the first time, there’s a tug of war instantly over the suitcase, and tug of war over the doll. Annie doesn’t expect Helen to be as strong willed as she is. Helen has never met someone as strong willed as Annie.”
In Sullivan, the Kellers found the ideal match for the headstrong Helen. Despite the fact that there is a cultural divide between Annie, the outspoken northerner, and the Kellers, particularly Arthur who served in the Confederate Army during the Civil War, Sullivan succeeds in becoming a valued member of the family.
“The mother was insistent,” explains Jacqueline Murphy of her character, Kate. “That’s why she bonds with Annie. We both believe this child has something inside of her, and to me that’s the beauty of the two women. Helen’s mother’s very loving and this is her one and only child. I think she has huge capacity for love and patience.”
Gersten has played the role of Annie Sullivan before, and has given a lot of thought to her character’s relationship with Helen, and why it ultimately succeeded as well as it did. In fact, Sullivan stayed with Keller as her companion for 49 years — until she died in 1936 at the age of 70.
“I think that there’s a part of Annie that sees herself in Helen,” explains Gersten. “Annie was a very isolated child because she was blind and orphaned, and Helen is isolated because she cannot communicate with anyone.”
“I think it’s an incredible story, and I think children really respond to this play because it’s about never giving up and believing in yourself,” says Gersten.
Playing the role of Helen Keller in “The Miracle Worker” is 12-year old Lily Spellman, a seventh grader from Hampton Bays. Spellman has appeared on stage before, in a North Fork Community Theater production, and seems completely at ease playing opposite seasoned adult actors. But she admits that portraying Helen Keller presented her with a whole knew acting challenge.
“It’s pretty tricky,” says Spellman. “I learned to pretend not to be able to see and hear, even though I can. I stare straight ahead.”
Spellman adds that she comes to the play with a bit of background knowledge, having done a project on Helen Keller in fifth grade.
“I think she was really amazing,” she says. “She was definitely very bright to overcome everything she overcame. She picked up on things so quickly. I don’t think I could have done that.”
“The Miracle Worker” runs November 8 through 20, 2010 at Bay Street Theatre on Long Wharf in Sag Harbor. The cast features Kate Gersten, Jacqueline Murphy, Ken Forman, Lily Spellman, Peter Connolly and Beryl Bernay. In addition to weekday performances for school groups, Friday and Saturday performances will be offered at 7 p.m. for the public. Tickets are $15 for adults/$10 for students. For more information call 725-9500.
Top: Kate Gersten and Lily Spellman as Annie Sullivan and Helen Keller in "The Miracle Worker."
