MONDAY AFTER THE MIRACLE

by Gibson, William

The sequel to this author’s celebrated The Miracle Worker, the present play takes up the story of its famous protagonists at a later point, when Helen Keller has come to young womanhood and Annie Sullivan finds her attention diverted by the love of younger man.

The action of the play takes place in Boston, seventeen years after the events of The Miracle Worker. Helen is now an honor student at Radcliffe, and she and Annie have undertaken to write a book about their remarkable experiences. A young instructor of English from Harvard, John Macy, is engaged to help them, and Annie, yielding to an overpowering need to pursue a life of her own, soon falls in love with him. Their marriage, and the disruptive domestic triangle that results, leads to the compelling crisis of the play. After years of total dedication to her charge, Annie finds her loyalties divided, and Helen, herself aware of strong sexual stirrings, contributes to the growing discord and the inevitable failure of her mentor’s marriage. As the play ends the two women accept the inescapable truth of their condition—that they are inextricably bound together and must find, in each other, whatever rewards life might bring.