THE MIRACLE WORKER

Tuesday, 3rd November
Bunkamura, Shibuya

I caught a performance of William Goldman’s THE MIRACLE WORKER (奇跡の人) on Tuesday. Apparently everybody knows this but me, but it’s a biographical account of the childhood of Helen Keller, who became blind and deaf at a very young age.

Although everything in the play revolves around her, the main character is her governess and mentor, Anne Sullivan. She teaches the blind and deaf Keller how to communicate, finally connecting her to a world that had written her off as an incomprensible animal. Anne Sullivan is the eponymous miracle worker, played here by Anne Suzuki (pictured above).

She’s best known to western audiences from the strangely great HANA AND ALICE, the pretty bad RETURNER, and the brake screechingly bad INITIAL D.