The Miracle Worker: Act I

DOCTOR. I’ve never seen a baby with more vitality, that’s the truth.

[She snaps her fingers at the baby’s eyes twice, and her hand falters; after a moment she calls out, loudly.]

[And now, still staring, KATE screams. KELLER in the yard hears it and runs with the lamp back to the house. KATE screams again, her look intent on the baby and terrible. KELLER hurries in and up.]

The third child is HELEN, six and a half years old, quite unkempt, in body a vivacious little person with a fine head, attractive, but noticeably blind, one eye larger and protruding; her gestures are abrupt, insistent, lacking in human restraint, and her face never smiles.

The third child is HELEN, six and a half years old, quite unkempt, in body a vivacious little person with a fine head, attractive, but noticeably blind, one eye larger and protruding; her gestures are abrupt, insistent, lacking in human restraint, and her face never smiles.

The third child is HELEN, six and a half years old, quite unkempt, in body a vivacious little person with a fine head, attractive, but noticeably blind, one eye larger and protruding; her gestures are abrupt, insistent, lacking in human restraint, and her face never smiles.

Inside, the lights have been gradually coming up on the main room, where we see the family informally gathered, talking, but in pantomime...

KATE next goes down on her knees, takes HELEN’S hands gently, and using the scissors like a doll, makes HELEN caress and cradle them; she points HELEN’S finger houseward.

AUNT EV. Why, this very famous oculist in Baltimore I wrote you about, what was his name?

She then yanks at her AUNT’S dress and taps again vigorously for eyes.

KELLER. You be quiet! I’m badgered enough here by females without your impudence.

HELEN now is groping among things on KELLER’S desk and paws his papers to the floor.

JAMES. Some asylum. It’s the kindest thing.

JAMES. Half sister, and half—mentally defective, she can’t even keep herself clean. It’s not pleasant to see her about all the time.

I’m as sensible to this affliction as anyone else. It hurts me to look at the girl.

Another kind of silence now, while KATE takes pins and buttons from the sewing basket and attaches them to the doll as eyes. KELLER stands, caught, and watches morosely.

Deprived child, the least she can have are the little things she wants.

[But HELEN suddenly has come upon the cradle and unhesitatingly overturns it; the swaddled baby tumbles out, and CAPTAIN KELLER barely manages to dive and catch it in time.]

All are in commotion, the baby screams, but HELEN, unperturbed, is laying her doll in its place.

KATE on her knees pulls her hands off the cradle, wringing them; HELEN is bewildered.

KATE [Flaring]. How can you discipline an afflicted child? Is it her fault?

She holds HELEN struggling until we hear from the child her first sound so far, an inarticulate weird noise in her throat such as an animal in a trap might make; and KATE releases her.

The second she is free HELEN blunders away, collides violently with a chair, falls, and sits weeping.

The chair contains a girl of twenty, ANNIE SULLIVAN, with a face which in repose is grave and rather obstinate, and when active is impudent, combative, twinkling with all the life that is lacking in HELEN’S, and handsome; there is a crude vitality to her.

[And now she has opened her eyes; they are inflamed, vague, slightly crossed, clouded by the granular growth of trachoma, and she often keeps them closed to shut out the pain of light.]

I mean in children it just seems a little—precocious, can I use that word?

ANAGNOS [Frowns]. Annie. I wrote them no word of your history. You will find yourself among strangers now, who know nothing of it.
ANNIE. Well, we’ll keep them in a state of blessed ignorance.

[HELEN happens upon her skirt, clutches her leg; KATE, in a tired dismay, kneels to tidy her hair and soiled pinafore.]

She gives HELEN a quick kiss, evades her hands, and hurries downstairs again.

[She turns HELEN toward the door. HELEN wanders out onto the porch, as KELLER comes up the steps. Her hands encounter him, and she touches her cheek again, waits.]

VINEY [Reproachfully]. Cap’n Keller, now how’m I gone get her to eat her supper you fill her up with that trash?

KELLER thinks better of it and tries to get the candy away from HELEN, but HELEN hangs on to it; and when KELLER pulls, she gives his leg a kick. KELLER hops about, HELEN takes refuge with the candy down behind the pump, and KELLER then irately flings his newspaper on the porch floor, stamps into the house past VINEY, and disappears.

I expected—a desiccated spinster. You’re very young.

KELLER acquires the suitcase, and ANNIE gets her hands on it too, though still endeavoring to live up to the general air of propertied manners.

When ANNIE finally reaches the porch steps she stops, contemplating HELEN for a last moment before entering her world.

She moves her hand on to ANNIE’S forearm, and dress; and ANNIE brings her face within reach of HELEN’S fingers, which travel over it, quite without timidity, until they encounter and push aside the smoked glasses.

...the shawl swamps her, and the bonnet settles down upon the glasses, but she stands before a mirror cocking her head to one side, then to the other, in a mockery of adult action. ANNIE is amused, and talks to her as one might to a kitten, with no trace of company manners.

ANNIE regards him stonily, but HELEN after a scowling moment tugs at her hand again, imperious.

[He takes HELEN’S hand, to throw a meaningless gesture into it; she repeats this one too.]
She imitates everything, she’s a monkey.

ANNIE takes it again, and HELEN’S hand next, but HELEN is incensed now; when ANNIE draws her hand to her face to shake her head no, then tries to spell to her, HELEN slaps at ANNIE’S face.

ANNIE looks around desperately, sees her purse on the bed, rummages in it, and comes up with a battered piece of cake wrapped in newspaper; with her foot she moves the doll deftly out of the way of HELEN’S groping, and going on her knee she lets HELEN smell the cake. When HELEN grabs for it, ANNIE removes the cake and spells quickly into the reaching hand.

[HELEN’S hand waits, baffled. ANNIE repeats it.]

JAMES takes in the whole situation, makes a move to intercept HELEN, but then changes his mind, lets her pass, and amusedly follows her out onto the porch.

ANNIE takes a handkerchief, nurses her mouth, stands in the middle of the room, staring at door and window in turn, and so catches sight of herself in the mirror, her cheek scratched, her hair disheveled, her handkerchief bloody, her face disgusted with herself.

Standing there, bent over the basin in pain—with the rest of the set dim and unreal, and the lights upon her taking on the subtle color of the past—she hears again, as do we, the faraway voices, and slowly she lifts her head to them; the boy’s voice is the same, the others are cracked old crones in a nightmare, and perhaps we see their shadows.

KELLER. Is there no key on your side?
ANNIE [With some asperity]. Well, if there was a key in here, I wouldn’t be in here. Helen took it. The only thing on my side is me.

ANNIE. I’m sorry to inconvenience you this way—
KELLER. No inconvenience, other than having that door taken down and the lock replaced, if we fail to find that key.

She smooths her skirt, looking as composed and ladylike as possible.

ANNIE and HELEN are now alone in the yard, HELEN seated at the pump, where she has been oblivious to it all, a battered little savage, playing with the doll in a picture of innocent contentment.

Presently HELEN rises, gropes around to see if anyone is present; ANNIE evades her hand, and when HELEN is satisfied she is alone, the key suddenly protrudes out of her mouth.