Word: kellers
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Dates: during 1950-1959
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...difficult because it demands a violation of one of the prime commandments of theatrical experience: never get on stage for too long with a child. But just as the triumph of Annie Sullivan's fierce and unsentimental love was burnished by her battle against the afflictions of Helen Keller, so the triumph of Anne Bancroft's stagecraft burgeons beside the improbable polish of her 13-year-old colleague, Patty Duke...
Unlocking a Mind. That haunting effect begins with the eerie, keening scream of the infant Helen Keller's mother (Patricia Neal) when she discovers that her child is deaf and blind. It is warmed by the first sound of the soft, self-assured brogue of Annie Sullivan arriving from Boston to take charge of Helen. It is nourished by the overwhelming urgency of Annie's every action, her passionate need to dispense with the amenities-and with the Keller family's sentimental softness-in order to get down to the awful business of unlocking a darkened human...
Captured at last, and seated forcibly at table, Helen Keller still does not yield. She flings her spoon away. Annie slaps another into her hand-and another and another. In the end Teacher Annie Sullivan stands triumphant above her charge. She has won a signal victory: Helen has eaten with a spoon and folded her napkin...
...suddenly clashed pot covers, unexpectedly fired questions. Conditioned reflexes to sight and sound came under control. The cast still remembers with amazement the night at Manhattan's Playhouse theater when a cable snapped with a loud crack high over the stage. Anne and the spaniel that plays the Keller family dog jumped a foot. Patty Duke, as the deaf Helen Keller, did not even start...
...Miracle Worker. Remarkably acted by Anne Bancroft and Patty Duke, William Gibson's fairly makeshift story of Teacher Annie Sullivan's turbulent grappling with the deaf, blind, mute child, Helen Keller, most of the time emerges an unsentimental human document and memorable theater...