Rounding up the reviews of “The Miracle Worker” today (mine is here), StageGrade wonders “Was it a deliberate ‘conceptual’ choice to stage the story of a blind-deaf-mute in a way that leaves the audience blind to the action? Nearly every review for the first Broadway revival of ‘The Miracle Worker’ mentions this irony, yet none grants director Kate Whoriskey credit for intending it.” Personally I think Whoriskey did the best she could considering the show is at Circle in the Square, which is in the round. If it was, indeed, a conceptual choice to do it there, I have to seriously question a decision to prevent half the audience from catching what’s going on. Let me emphasize: Half the paying audience can’t see the actors’ faces at crucial moments.
It wasn’t as much of an issue in “The Norman Conquests,” also at Circle in the Square, maybe because there were more actors on stage at any given time. But the key scenes in “The Miracle Worker” are between two people. The actresses were facing me in the climactic water-pump scene at the end, when Helen has her big breakthrough. But those sitting on the opposide side of the theater weren’t as lucky. Do we really want to believe that depriving them from seeing Abigail Breslin’s expression at that point was conceptual? It may have worked at PS 122, but at $117 a pop on Broadway, it feels harsh.