Play focuses on teacher, Helen Keller
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LAFAYETTE — Near its end, “The Miracle Worker” offers a harrowing scene that still chills audiences to this day, when a blind, animal-like Helen Keller and her equally lonely, but sighted teacher Annie Sullivan, have an intellectual moment of clarity.
It occurs at a water well. For Lafayette director Bruce Coen, the interplay is a highlight of this play, as based on Keller’s autobiography and made famous by actress Patty Duke, with Anne Bancroft as Sullivan, in the 1962 film of the same name.
The play opens at 7:30 p.m. at Cité des Arts off Jefferson Street, at 109 Vine St., with Sarah Gauthier and Colette Soileau in the main roles.
“The final scene is where the breakthrough takes place,” Coen said Wednesday before a final run-through. “And it’s where Annie Sullivan’s persistence finally pays off. It’s amazing how the actors show that transformation.”
Coen has an actual pump for that “miracle” moment at the old well. Water is a theme, and it surfaces when Keller supposedly repeated her first infant words “wah-wah,” a common usage for “water,” after Sullivan finger-seared it into her open hand.
The play runs through June 6. Other dates are May 21-23, May 28-30 and June 4-6, all at 7:30 p.m. Tickets are $15 for adults and $10 for senior citizens and students with ID. For reservations, call Cité at (337) 291-1122.
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