Lakeshore Players delivering miracles
When Lakeshore Players Dorval announced the auditions for The Miracle Worker, the idea was to cast a teenager, 14 to 18 years old, as deaf and blind Helen Keller. But when director Donna Byrne saw 11-year-old Melia Cressaty’s audition for a smaller role as a blind child, she asked her to step into the role of Helen for a moment. It worked. “I was very nervous because I hadn’t prepared,” Cressaty said. Lakeshore Players Dorval launches its season with William Gibson’s The Miracle Worker at Lakeside Academy on Thursday. The play is based on the true story of the American activist, author and scholar Keller, who went deaf and blind at 19 months old after a bout of what today’s doctors would probably diagnose as meningitis. The fallout from the illness was that she became almost feral. Her tantrums were epic. For the audition, Cressaty was asked to do one of the more physically demanding tantrum scenes from the play. In 1903, when Keller was 22, she wrote an autobiography, The Story of My Life. It explained how her parents, wanting to help their frustrated and isolated daughter, contacted the Perkins Institute for the Blind in Boston and hired Anne Sullivan to be their daughter’s governess. Sullivan, played by Stephanie von Roretz in the Lakeshore production, eventually made a breakthrough with Keller that made it possible for her to connect and communicate with the world. Cressaty had no lines to learn. Instead, it’s been all about memorizing multiple cues — when to lash out, when to throw or grab at an object. She also had to learn how to stare blankly and move her limbs with uncertainty. “I can’t just walk normally because I can’t see,” Cressaty said. “And I can’t just turn my head when someone speaks because I can’t hear.” In the play Cressaty, as Helen, spends a good deal of time in mother Kate Keller’s arms. Kate is played by Cressaty’s real-life mom Jennifer Martin. "(Helen) knew her mother loved her,” Cressaty said. “Being in her arms made her feel safe.” Her real-life mom has had to learn to separate reality from make-believe. “I love to watch her (act),” Martin said of her daughter. “But often she is reacting with her back to me, so I can’t see. I’ve had to make the separation — we are castmates.” Although Martin can’t break out of character to give her daughter advice during rehearsals, she has helped her prepare for the role at their home in Dollard-desOrmeaux. To help Cressaty to better understand Keller’s isolation, Martin rearranged the living room furniture. Cressaty, who was not allowed to see the new layout, then inserted ear plugs given to her by the director, covered her eyes with a blindfold and attempted to navigate the room. “I didn’t know where anything was,” Cressaty said. “I learned how to hold my arms out and move my legs.” Cressaty and her mother, back in the day, had done school reports on Keller, so they went into the project with some understanding of the activist’s accomplishments. They also watched the 1962 film starring Anne Bancroft as Sullivan and Patty Duke as Keller. Both won Oscars for their performances. “It is inspiring,” Martin said of Keller’s story. “At the beginning there was no hope and yet she went on to become a scholar and a lecturer.”