To Kill a Mockingbird
Reviewed by Deborah Klugman
The Pantages Theatre
Through Nov. 27
RECOMMENDED
Harper Lee’s To Kill a Mockingbird was published in 1960, while the movie — based on Harper’s novel and starring Gregory Peck as a white lawyer defending a black man accused of rape — came out in 1962. Both the book and the film depicted the racist South through the eyes of a child, its scenario predating the March on Washington in 1963 and the televised police assaults on the civil rights marchers that electrified the country that same year.
Nearly 60 years later, in December 2018, Aaron Sorkin’s stage adaptation opened on Broadway. In interviews, Sorkin has spoken of the departures he made from the original in order to update the play to the perspective of 21st century audiences. Chief among them is a bend in the dramatic arc away from Scout, Atticus Finch’s daughter and the pivotal character in the novel, to Atticus himself — making the lawyer less of a white savior and more of a flawed hero, with his idealistic illusions tempered by play’s end. Sorkin has also altered the perspective of the black folks in town, from an audience grateful for Atticus’s efforts — in court, in the movie, they stand respectfully as he passes, even though he’s lost the case — to people with a voice that will be heard. The playwright accomplishes this by expanding the role of Calpurnia, the Finch household’s Black housekeeper, from a supportive servant who takes good care of the kids to someone who, in addition to being a great nurturer, is also an articulate advocate for change, impatient with Atticus’s unwavering faith in the eventual triumph of justice. (if only we’re patient enough!).
Played by Jeff Daniels in the Broadway premiere (and subsequently by Ed Harris and Greg Kinnear), Atticus, in the current touring production, is depicted by Richard Thomas, in a winning portrayal of a good man who must ultimately confront the limitations of his courage and his beliefs.
Notwithstanding its shift in perspective, Sorkin’s adaptation largely preserves the characters and events in the novel, including the three young people under Atticus’s tutelage: his 8-year-old daughter, the irrepressible Scout (Melanie Moore), her older brother Jem (Justin Mark), who evolves to young manhood in the course of events, and the kid from out of town, Dill (Steven Lee Johnson), their playmate, who’s “different” — and also wise beyond his years in his observations of what is going down in this small racist town.
The kids’ benign mischief-making and the various characters they interact with form the tableaux for the gripping drama at the heart of the play: An innocent Black man, Tom Robinson (Yaegel T. Welch), is brought to trial for a crime he did not — and indeed, could not — have committed. His accuser, Bob Ewell (Joey Collins), the father of the woman Tom allegedly assaulted, is a vicious drunk who spews hate like a geyser and regards Atticus as a traitor to his race for stepping up to defend him.
Ewell is as villainous and despicable as Atticus is principled and caring, and as played by Collins as dangerous and explosive as a Molotov cocktail. The character’s dark evil energy fairly pulsates beyond the stage and out into the audience. Still, the high-minded Atticus refuses to deny Ewell’s humanity, claiming you can’t judge a person unless you’ve been inside their skin. It’s here where Calpurnia (Jacqueline Williams), a Black woman whose people have suffered centuries of brutality and injustice perpetrated by the Ewells of this world, angrily challenges her longtime employer for the myopia of his illusions.
Directed by Brad Sher (who also directed the original on Broadway) the production benefits from a skilled ensemble, whose assured performances act as buffer against the melodrama. Besides Thomas and Collins, several are notable. Ewell’s abused daughter Mayella (Arianna Gayle Stucki), it turns out, is as venomous as her dad, and Stucki’s near frothing-at-the-mouth scene in the witness box is formidably realized. The fully-fleshed-out performances of Williams as Calpurnia and Welch as the honorable Tom lend breadth and substance to the latter’s tragedy, as Sorkin intended.
At over two and a half hours, the show does run long; the scenes with the kids, played by adults, aren’t nearly as involving as those having to do with the trial, Tom’s fate and the threat to Atticus himself (at one point he singlehandedly holds a mob at bay).
That said, the power of the production lies in how painfully it mirrors the terribleness of our own time, as Oath Keepers, Proud Boys and white nationalists of all stripes burrow deep into our system, murdering innocent people of color. Meanwhile, journalists write articles about the psychology of MAGA true believers, while too many of us committed to respecting the rights of others hedge our response.
It bears mention that, near the end, several of the town’s White honchos, including Atticus, conspire to protect another White man from the law by circumventing it. The person being protected is weak and vulnerable, so this isn’t an act of villainy exactly. Still, there was no such meeting of minds when the life of a person of color was at stake.
Pantages Theatre, 6233 Hollywood Blvd., Hollywood. Tues.-Fri. 8 pm, Sat, 2 & 8 pm, Sun., 1 & 6:30 pm; thru Nov. 27. www.hollywoodpantages.com Running time: approximately two hours and 35 minutes with an intermission.
