On Playing Blind

In preparation for an upcoming role in which my character goes suddenly blind, I referenced one of my favorite online actor resources - The Craft column of Backstage.com. Here, resident arts writer Jean Schiffman handles everything from playing drunk to crying on cue (still working on that one). Even though my show is a comedy, and my sudden blindness is more of a nod to the absurd shifts in mood and action in Samuel Beckett, I wanted to be certain I was playing with precision and had grasp of the realism involved in that characterization. Jean was kind enough to e-mail me an archived article she wrote back in 2008 on the topic, so I thought I would share it with anyone else who missed it the first time around. Enjoy and be sure to check out more of Schiffman's articles every month on Backstage.com.


Playing Blind Characters
Backstage 2008
By Jean Schiffman 

Wait Until Dark, Scent of a Woman, The Miracle Worker, Butterflies Are Free, Molly Sweeney—plays and films with blind characters as leads are few. Companies like New York’s Theatre By the Blind wish there were more such roles, and they advocate for blind actors to be cast in them. Yet just as disabled characters are most often portrayed by abled actors (with some notable exceptions), so too are characters like Susy (Dark), Don (Butterflies), and the eponymous Molly usually played by sighted actors. (The blind-and-deaf Helen Keller role is of course played by a sighted little girl.) Until that situation changes, non-blind actors going into those roles have much to learn.

            For starters, says George Ashiotis, co-artistic director of Theatre By the Blind, “So much depends on if the person has been born blind or when and how they lost their sight, whether from traumatic accident. It’s probably going to be traumatic one way or the other.” Those born blind or blind for a long time move with ease; those who recently lost sight may be less adept.

But actors tend to overplay the disability, making the character all about being blind. Ashiotis, for instance, does not count steps in his own apartment; he mostly moves with ease. “A blind character’s life and characteristics and mannerisms and makeup are just as rich [as a sighted character’s] and should not be cheated,” says Ashiotis. “There’s a fullness and range there that shouldn’t be trumped by blindness.”

Actors often prepare by practicing blindfolded or with eyes shut. For example, to play Susy at the San Francisco Bay Area’s Broadway West Theatre Company, Paula Chenoweth walked around in the dark, especially in her own house. Similarly, Troy Johnson, directing Miracle Worker, had his Helen walk around blindfolded, and the girl’s mother also blindfolded her for at-home practice.

            But Chris Danielsen, PR specialist at National Federation of the Blind’s headquarters in Baltimore, says blindfolding is a bad idea. If you’ve been blind for any period of time, you’re used to it, he explains. Blind since birth, he himself goes through the day relatively smoothly, he says. “If you’re blindfolded, you’ll run into things and feel disoriented, and that’s not what the experience is for a blind person unless they’ve just gone blind. Blind people learn certain skills to cope with blindness, we’ve developed those skills, and our experience is very different from just being blindfolded.”

            What he recommends—and what most of the actors I talked to also did to prepare—is to meet blind people. Otherwise you’re at the mercy of stereotypes perpetuated by the media. Chenoweth toured the local school for the blind and talked to some of the teachers there, although she says you don’t really know how to do it until you actually try it yourself. New York director Susan Fenichell, directing Miracle Worker for Milburn, New Jersey’s Paper Mill Playhouse (running Jan. 23-Feb.24), had her cast watch a documentary about deaf and blind triplets born in Houston.

And Jenny Bacon, who portrayed Molly Sweeney first at the Steppenwolf Theatre and then at the Arena Stage a decade ago, says, “The most important thing was going to the blind community, talking to blind people. You discover there are as many different ways of being blind as anything else. And there are many political stances one takes, the right political terms, many places people stand in terms of using a cane, not using a cane. It’s quite charged—[it’s about] your personal identity and your political identity. . . . And hearing the specific stories, that gets you in touch with who that person is, and their relationship to blindness.”

That’s exactly the right approach, according to Danielsen. “Our philosophy is blind people are normal people who just happen to be blind,” he says. “There aren’t any two blind people who are alike, just like there aren’t any two sighted people who are alike. There’s a misconception that we’re unaware of the world around us, incompetent. If actors expose themselves to blind people, their perception of blindness will change, and that will affect the way they play the role, within the constraints of the script, of course.”

I asked Ashiotis about other misconceptions regarding the blind. “I hear that blind people are [sometimes] portrayed without any facial expression,” he says. “Their eyes never move, their expression never changes. But we have muscles in our faces that are involuntary. When we cry or laugh, our muscles move. To portray someone with no expression is a big disservice to the blind population.”

Indeed, in recent decades it’s been scientifically proven that Darwin was right: facial expressions are universal and innate across cultures. Ashiotis notes that it’s a different matter when it comes to gestures and body language—he thinks that’s cultural. For example, you have to learn to point when indicating a direction; it doesn’t come naturally and can feel awkward.

Then there’s the matter of eye focus. Actors and directors usually work to achieve a sort of soft eye focus. “That’s a hard thing to do,” says Alana Ghent, who directed Miracle Worker at Ovation Theatre in Cincinnati in 2006. “It’s a technical thing—to keep a softened gaze and also be safe as an actor.” That is, you don’t want to fall off the stage. Says Chenoweth, “I had to find places where I could look without seeing.” She found that if she looked at something and believed she didn’t see it, it somehow worked. And onstage the darkness of the audience helped her. Fenichell remarks, “The biggest challenge is not focusing on who you’re relating to. You can’t appear to ever look directly at anyone.”

But Ashiotis demurs: “Most blind people who have been educated and have any amount of rehabilitation are basically taught that when you’re in conversation with someone, you look at them, or turn your face toward them. Depending on the intensity of what you’re saying, it can be more so. From what I hear, sighted actors playing blind almost make a point of never facing the person they’re talking to. I think sometimes too much is made of the fact that we don’t see a face.”

Danielsen adds, “We can hear [who we’re talking to], we do look in their direction, and we let them know by body language that we’re focused on what they’re saying. It’s impolite not to look at someone you’re talking to.”

Ghent notes the importance of relying on the other senses. “You want to put your hands out and feel everything,” she says, “but you also need to feel with your legs, the skin on your face. Am I closer to the window, what smells are helping me?” It goes without saying that hearing becomes heightened, too (unless playing Keller).

Preparing to play Molly Sweeney 10 years ago, Bay Area actor Lorri Holt talked to many people at a local center for the visually impaired. “I noticed that some people who are sightless, their eyes stare, but for many, their eyes move around a lot,” she says. She tried it, and it made her dizzy at first and strained her eye muscles, but she got used to it and it felt right for the character.

She also closely observed the delicate way one blind woman’s fingers moved, and adapted those gestures for Molly, experimenting with ways to play with Molly’s jewelry. Holt also found herself using her hands not so much to communicate but in ways that revealed emotions.

 And feeling that Molly would know her way around places, she refamiliarized herself with the set every night before curtain.

Advises Jenny Bacon to others preparing to play blind characters: “Talk to the blind community. Doors will start to open in your own mind and you’ll better understand where your blind character fits in the spectrum. You’ll begin to understand what issues exist. There’s a lot to learn about the community before you tackle your own character.”

Danielsen notes that there’s a chapter of the 50,000-member-strong National Federation of the Blind in every major city that is glad to help you research your role; go to www.nfb.org