The Miracle Worker Review – Wright State University – The Special Relationship

((Excerpt))

Wright State University opens its 38th season with a wonderfully heartfelt production of William Gibson’s 1959 Tony Award-winning drama “The Miracle Worker,” the compelling account of Helen Keller and her teacher Annie Sullivan set in Tuscumbia, Alabama and based on Keller’s 1903 autobiography “The Story of My Life.”

As the deaf, blind and mute Helen, Kate Mueller, a musical theater major, is an impressively expressive presence. With wide eyes and childlike wonder, Mueller, never resorting to off-kilter or exaggerated dramatics, beautifully grasps Helen’s yearning to communicate more fully through sign language while trapped by her own fussy stubbornness and the unhelpful sheltering of overly doting parents. She also makes the smallest revelations prodigious, particularly in Act 2 when Helen, inquisitively sensing competition, becomes jealous of her playmate Percy, adorably played by Julian Rojas.

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