Review: THE MIRACLE WORKER at The Belmont Theatre

Live theater is back in York, PA. The Belmont Theatre is known for producing high quality professional shows. Although stalled by the pandemic, this community theatre is now back in full force.

The Miracle Worker revolves around the early life of Helen Keller and her relationship with young teacher, Annie Sullivan. Helen, a deaf-blind child, wanders through life on her own terms behaving horribly and throwing violent fits. In an effort to avoid sending her to an asylum, her parents employ Annie to see if the child can learn.

Carly Geiter (Helen) tackles the challenges of playing a deaf-blind child with skill. Never making eye contact or responding to sounds, it is easy to forget she is a middle school girl who actually possesses both sight and sound. Geiter's portrayal of a child's manipulative temper tantrum, with its flailing, grunting, and physical demands, suggests she's either devoted a great deal of time to rehearsing these scenes and is exceptionally talented.

To create a successful production of The Miracle Worker requires a powerful dynamic between Helen and her teacher, Annie. As this is the centerpiece of the story, these two actors must work together to create dramatic, often heart wrenching, scenes. Marisa Hoover's Annie Sullivan is a masterful interpretation of the strong yet vulnerable woman who believed in Helen and was not afraid to fight for her (and with her). Geiter and Hoover's ability to play off one another is remarkable and a strength of this show.

Other stand out performances include the many child actors. Finding and directing student actors is no easy task. Fortunately for this production, Lilliana Flickinger, Julian Ford, Ella Persing, Nora Persing, and Alyssa Shreiner all gave strong performances and brought the needed gentle moments to the show.

While the intimate atmosphere of the blackbox theater is well suited to a show such as this, the design and staging fell short. Attempting to create multiple locations in the limited space was not as successful as other elements of the show. At times, it was difficult to follow where the actors were supposed to be, especially when not in the bedroom or dining room set. Another illusion that didn't quite work were the lighting and sound effects used to depict what was going on in Annie's mind. It was unclear if these were intended to be thoughts or hallucinations. While they did work to move the story along and help us understand Annie's motivations, they were unclear and a bit spooky.

Overall, The Miracle Worker was a crowd pleaser and a wonderful night of theater. To learn more about this and future shows at The Belmont Theatre, visit https://thebelmont.org/

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