To Kill a Mockingbird : A Path Through the Darkness
I saw amazing commitment to the craft at the Mainstage
Center for the Performing Arts on
the premier night of this short run. Seventeen minutes into the play the lights
went out. Actors, stage manager, audience, plunged into the pitch, just
like the beginning of Black Comedy. And, as in Black Comedy, the
actors didn’t blink.
Let me amend. The actors didn’t hesitate. I have no idea if
they blinked. But, led by Tim Rinehart, they went right on with the show, Mr.
Rinehart tossing in a reference to the sudden
darkness into the dialogue. This put the audience at ease for a moment. Perhaps
this was a new staging concept for the story. Perhaps it will prove an interesting
metaphor.
A half-minute played on in blackness it was becoming less interesting.
Then characters began referring to movements which they obviously couldn’t be
making or seeing if they were made. The audience stirred. Something was amiss.
Sure enough, the VoG--or the artistic director, but they are
almost the same thing, aren't they?—descended from above, "Ladies and
gentlemen, we are having technical difficulties. . ."
It turns out the main junction box feeding power to all the
stage lights had burned out. Further, it could not be repaired. It needed
replacing, a process which could not be effected until the coming week at the
earliest. It may, in fact, not be replaced by next week’s performance times. We
were stuck. The company valiantly offered us refunds and replacement tickets,
but we were having none of it. And neither were the actors.
They suggested turning on the house lights and stage work
lights as well as using two follow spots operating from a different circuit in
the booth. And that’s what they did and that’s how they played. And they were
marvelous.
I’m not going to submit my review of the performance yet,
save to say that it was worth more than the price of admission without the
lights. And the lighting was gorgeous for the first 17 minutes. Next week’s
audiences are in for a treat. Either the lights will be fixed, or the company
has vowed to bring in portable stage lights. The show will go on.
But they had to cancel the Saturday, February 4 show, a true
tragedy. On February 3, the 600-seat house was a sixth full soaking wet. I am
keeping my full review until Wednesday, February 8 so that it will be freshly
in front of eyes looking for something cool to do on the weekend of February
10. This show deserves an audience. More than that, audiences need this show.
This story has survived translation, adoration and disdain.
On February 3, led by Addicus Finch, the purest icon of the American sense of
justice and fair play produced by the 20th Century, it survived the
darkness, as it will next week, by using its own lights.
To Kill A Mockingbird
By Nelle Harper Lee
Adapted for the stage by Christopher Sergel
Directed by Chris Melohn
Mainstage Center
for the Arts
Blackwood, New
Jersey
Thank you for the kind comments, Terry. TO KILL A MOCKINGBIRD is a play that we have wanted to present for years at Mainstage and we felt that the time was right in our development as a theater company to do it justice. We hope to have the lighting issue in the theatre resolved in some way by next week because we, too, do not want audiences to miss this show. It speaks to the heart of everyone. Nelle Harper Lee wrote a masterpiece that seemlessly weaves the stories of racial injustice, social inequality, and the importance of a moral education into a powerful compelling story. Sometimes you go to see a play and there is not a lot of content but lots of theatre hocus-pocus with the lights and sound and special effects. The beauty of TO KILL A MOCKINGBIRD is that you can take all of those production values away, and still be touched by the TRUTH that we all universally share though Harper Lee's characters. As you said above, "This show deserves an audience. More than that, audiences need this show." - Ed Fiscella, Producing Artistic Director for Mainstage Center for the Arts
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