Theatre in Review: Three Days to See (Transport Group)Jack Cummings III, the author, needs to have a few sharp words with Jack Cummings III, the director. Cummings, the possessor of a fine theatrical imagination, has done excellent work with many playwrights but, just now, he is committing what amounts to sabotage against a piece that he himself has conceived. Three Days to See is taken from the writings of Helen Keller, and the text that Cummings has compiled and edited couldn't be more interesting. Keller lived by the pen, leaving behind a record of her inner life that will be revelatory to anyone who knows her only as the feral child portrayed in William Gibson's The Miracle Worker. Keller addresses her early years when, left blind and deaf by illness, she was allowed to run wild until Annie Sullivan brought to her language and a way of understanding a world she could neither see nor hear. But Three Days to See goes far beyond that familiar narrative, recounting a number of fascinating episodes from Keller's adult life, among them an aborted romance, the death of her beloved mother, a lucrative turn in vaudeville, an unhappy pass at motion picture stardom, the devastating loss of Sullivan (which left her with a persistent sense of isolation), and a furious tussle with her German publisher, who, in the '30s, tried to censor one of her books. The title refers to her fantasy of being given the gift of sight for a brief period; as she describes how she would absorb every detail of the world, one is oddly reminded of Emily Webb, the tragic heroine of Our Town, looking back from the grave at the richness of existence that she never really took in when alive. (Interestingly, Keller never talks about having three days to hear, a provocative omission that leaves one wondering.) The text traces her development from "phantom" (her word for her preverbal self) to Sullivan's avid pupil to formidable and independent-minded public intellectual. Most noteworthy is the revelation of Keller's radical sympathies, especially her worship of Vladimir Lenin. It would be fascinating to learn how this aspect of her was airbrushed out of the public image she presented in her later years. Furthermore, Cummings has engaged a sparkling cast to deliver Keller's words, each of them communicating the nimble quality of her mind and her rich emotional life. Barbara Walsh, the best-known member of the cast, also doubles as an impressively tough Annie when needed, but everyone else -- Ito Aghayere (who made a strong impression last season in The Liquid Plain), Patrick Boll, Marc delaCruz, Theresa McCarthy, Chinaza Uche, and Zoe Wilson (who could work on her enunciation a little) -- navigate the text and stylized staging with a professionalism that is a pleasure to observe. Seen in a more austere production, Three Days to See would be one of the summer's more stimulating events. But Cummings piles on intrusive, even vulgar, staging ideas that brutally undercut the fine work described above. The piece begins aggressively, with each cast member running on stage to deliver, via microphone, one of those tasteless Helen Keller jokes that, chances are, you sniggered at when you were 15. Anyway, they're certainly not funny now, and two or three of these would easily make the point, but the sequence is allowed to go on seemingly forever -- a friend of mine clocked it at seven minutes -- causing massive irritation. (The fact that the actors are miked in this sequence only adds to its assaultive nature.) This is followed by a sort of recreation of the famous fight scene from The Miracle Worker, a free-for-all in which Annie lays waste to the Keller dining room in an effort to get her charge to observe simple table manners. For reasons that pass all understanding, this arduously physical sequence is staged to an ear-shattering recording of Benny Goodman's "Sing, Sing, Sing." During the scene, the role of Helen is swapped out repeatedly, with various members of the cast assuming her character by donning a pinafore. I cannot explain any of this, but I can report that a life-or-death battle is turned into crude, loud slapstick. Speaking of loud, scene after scene is marred by underscoring that is distracting and delivered at nearly painful decibel levels. Some of the choices are merely too obvious or too cute: When Helen talks about her fascination with the novel Gone with the Wind, "Tara's Theme" blares throughout the theatre -- no fewer than three times. But when Keller goes on the vaudeville stage, is it really necessary to play the overture from Gypsy? And when she appears in a film, is "Hooray for Hollywood" the best choice anyone could come up with? Occasionally, the music strikes just the right note -- for example, the use of Erik Satie's Gymnopédie No.1 as Keller contemplates the loss of her mother. But, more often, we are subjected to bizarrely chosen and overly well-known selections from Broadway and jazz. When Helen discusses her dreams, "Over the Rainbow" segues into "Take Five." Her account of a plane ride is accompanied by "Out of My Dreams" from Oklahoma! A walk through a forest is set to "Appalachian Spring." Later, we get "People Will Say We're in Love" and, strangest of all, the overture to Candide. The effect is of trying to watch a play while a loud radio blares in the background. It would be easy to blame the sound designer, Walter Trarbach, if it weren't so obvious that he has given Cummings exactly what he wanted. Whatever the director was after, the result is a cacophony that proves destructive. In contrast, R. Lee Kennedy's lighting is stunning, relying on sidelight and a variety of saturated colors to create one gorgeous tableau after another; given the sparseness of Dane Laffrey's set -- a set of long tables and half a dozen chairs -- the lighting takes on enormous importance, providing a variety of subtle looks that add as much to the piece's overall impact as the sound detracts from it. Laffrey also supplied the costumes, a series of casual looks that flatter each cast member. Whatever has gone wrong with this production, there is still a compelling theatre piece on display for all to see. Other theatre companies should give it a look; if Keller's words were treated more respectfully, it would make a most compelling evening. In its current form, Three Days to See is one highly perplexing attraction. I've often heard playwrights complain about directors ruining their work, but this is some kind of strange theatrical hara-kiri. -- David Barbour 
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