Today, friends, let us take a moment as we lie in a stupor brought on by a megawatt combination of time change and Reese's Cups overdose and reflect on that long lost quality of our daily lives...Common sense.
On Wednesday, the producers of the Broadway revival of the play "The Miracle Worker," about the early life of blind and deaf hero Helen Keller, announced that they'd chosen the young actress who will play her on stage this winter: 13-year-old Oscar nominee Abigail Breslin. The decision has unleashed immediate complaints from groups representing blind and deaf actors who feel that an actress from their community should have been considered for the role.
Sharon Jensen, executive director of the Alliance for Inclusion in the Arts, told the New York Times "We do not think it's OK for reputable producers to cast this lead role without seriously considering an actress from our community." Jensen recognizes the difficulty Broadway plays are having attracting audiences right now, but says "I understand how difficult it is to capitalize a new production on Broadway, but that to me is not the issue. There are other, larger human and artistic issues at stake here."
For his part, the show's producer, David Richenthal, claims that the production was unable to find a blind or deaf child actor with the star power to bring in enough of an audience to justify the show's large budget, saying "It's simply naïve to think that in this day and age, you'll be able to sell tickets to a play revival solely on the potential of the production to be a great show or on the potential for an unknown actress to give a breakthrough performance," he said. "I would consider it financially irresponsible to approach a major revival without making a serious effort to get a star." The show will, however, be making an effort to find a blind or deaf actress to play Breslin's understudy -- but they won't make any promises.
The original Broadway production of "The Miracle Worker," which focuses on Helen Keller's relationship with Anne Sullivan, the teacher who taught her to communicate, debuted in 1959 with the actress Patty Duke as its star. Later, movie and TV versions of the play starred actresses Duke, Melissa Gilbert, and Mare Winningham in the role of Keller, none of whom were blind or deaf.
Ordinarily, I'd be among the first to go all Norma Rae on the perpetrators of an unacceptable slight to those who face life bravely with additional burdens you and I can only begin to comprehend.
The deaf. The blind. Amputees. Paraplegics. Quadraplegics.
Republicans.
But, this time out, I didn't need to read much past the end of the first paragraph before I composed, in both mind and heart, the phrase that pays.
Oh, puh-leeze.
We all have football games to enjoy (well, everyone except my friends in Tennessee), another World Series game to enjoy (well, everyone except my friends who think the Phillies have an ice cube's chance) and a whole lot of candy wrappers to Hefty bag up today, so I'm not going to belabor what I think to be the obvious point here.
Except to offer this quick grasp of the aformentioned:
Nobody griped when they didn't use real wizards to make "Harry Potter"...
Nobody griped when they didn't use real Vulcans to make "Star Trek"...
Nobody griped when they didn't use Ray Charles instead of Jamie Foxx to make "Ray"...
Nobody griped when they didn't use real Von Trapp family members in "The Sound Of Music"...
And nobody griped when they didn't use Natalie Wood's real singing voice when she was in "West Side Story"...
A musical, for God's sake.
Benefit of the doubt requires me to assume that this "Alliance for Inclusion in the Arts" is an organization that has its heart in the right place and its intentions strictly labeled as good.
But hollering into the old public megaphone about the injustice of not using a blind and deaf actress to play a blind and deaf actress shows, at the very least, an ignorance about the realities of show business.
And actually appears less an exercise in advocacy than it does an exercise in justification for their own existence.
I'm confident that the producers of the show considered every single one of the "name value" actresses who would fit the bill, in terms of both talent and life challenge.
Obviously, Marlee Matlin was unavailable.
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