To Kill a Mockingbird : A Path Through the Darkness
Nelle Harper Lee published this story in 1960, pre-dating
the main force of the Civil Rights Movement by three or four years. It became an immediate success and within a
year was translated into ten languages, a task much more daunting at the time
than it is now.
It has been cited as the most widely read book on American
racial injustice in the world. The British Librarians Society named it a book
more significant to read than The Bible. And Atticus Finch, given to us like a Mont
Blanc of humanity by Tim Rinehart, quickly became the 20th
Century’s most recognized icon of American racial self-awareness world-wide.
On Friday, February 3, Mr. Rinehart not only led a troupe
through the racial darkness of the mid-20th Century American south,
he led it through the literal darkness which descended upon the stage about 15
minutes into the performance.
Without so much as a groan or a pop indicating something
amiss, the lights were gone. One moment they were giving us gorgeous
fulfillment of the stage pictures behind partially finished, framed suggestions
of houses and the next they were gone. We sat in total darkness for a tenth of
a stunned moment before Mr. Rinehart went right on with the dialogue. The company
followed in fine fashion.
He incorporated a reference to the sudden darkness into his
lines, putting the audience at ease and suggesting that this was somehow done
on purpose: perhaps a new staging concept for the show. An oddity, certainly, but we were game.
However, if the crisis is real, as it was at the time,
there’s only so far pretending all’s well can go. When the cast began referring
to actions they could not possibly have taken or seen if someone else took
them, the audience stirred. Then the announcement infused the room from above like
the voice of the universe come to put things right, “Ladies and gentlemen, we
are having technical difficulties. . .”
The voice from above put it mildly. The main box feeding all
power to the stage lights had burned out. Not only was there no possibility of
repair for the show to continue, there was no possibility of saving the
following night’s performance. There was even danger to the coming week’s
presentations.
The miracle of that evening was that Atticus Finch, the
attorney whose sense of fairness is so deep that he easily brushes aside the darkness
of prejudice to see what is true, also had the presence of craft to lead us
through the literal darkness back into the light of performance. Because
neither the cast nor the audience would give up. Everyone wanted a play.
In the end, the house lights were lit, the work lights on
stage went on, and there were two follow-spots in the booth on outside circuits
cranked wide and lighting the entire stage front. After a bit of technical
finagling, the cast played on. So let me review this piece which continued by
its own grace and in its own light.
The show opens with the angelic voice of Toni Roberts,
playing the Finch family’s housekeeper Calpurnia, taking us out of our present
world and gently sweeping us back to a time of greater sorrow with a soft, glorious
rendition of the spiritual “Were You There When They Crucified My Lord”. You do
not have to be Christian in any sense for this to prepare your heart for what
is to follow.
Ms. Roberts does with Calpurnia what every member of this
cast does with the role they play: makes it fully beautiful in type. There has
been criticism of the work in general on the grounds that some characters are
pure stereotype, which is almost true. All the characters are stereotypes.
The story is a parable: righteousness, justice and sobriety
vs. prejudice, expedience and drunkenness. It is a wonderful parable. But all
the characters are iconic.
Bob Ewell, given to us in drunken glory by Thomas Guzzi, is
the drunkiest town drunk that ever drank. His daughter, Mayella, played with
the teeth and claws of a cornered badger by Samantha Morrone, is the sluttiest
town slut who ever. . .slutted.
Together, dripping racial slurs and malice towards all, they
perpetrate a great injustice on kindly, open-hearted Tom Robinson, played with
gentility and conviction by Steven Bryan. They put Tom in jeopardy of his life.
Tom is certainly a stereotype. Shuffling and with a lame
left hand, he is trammeled innocence trying to get through a barbarous life
intact. We see one moment of explosive passion in him, and Mr. Bryan delivers
this most effectively. But in the end, his innocence cannot sustain in the face
of the grand lie.
Atticus Finch is most certainly a stereotype. The father of
six-year-old Scout and pre-teen Jem, he never gets angry except justly. This is
a stereotype. A beautiful stereotype which Mr. Rinehart presents with such
craft and strength as to elicit a cosmic sigh and the thought, ah, humanity!
when the curtain rings down.
To say that Mr. Rinehart evokes Gregory Peck is a fine
compliment in that he is not playing Gregory Peck. His choice of dialect and
intention are fully his, and he owns them.
But his build and the depth of his voice combined with the
standard gray fedora and those familiar sentiments he delivers with such
centered depth and clarity could not help but evoke the iconic rendition of the
iconic character in a most satisfying way. Thank you, Mr. Rinehart, for another
fine performance.
The full impact of the story is brought home to us by the
three, principal young characters whose awakening to the raw realities of
racism embody the sad but hopeful lost-innocence message presented in the tale.
6-year-old Scout Finch, fully delivered by 11-year-old Emily
Moore, while not the center of the play that she is to the novel, is the
embodiment of the struggle of righteous innocence to comprehend the existence
of cruelty.
Older brother Jem Finch, realized with heroic energy by
13-year-old Aidan Meagher, is childhood struggling with maturity. He takes his
lumps learning the lessons of the world.
And marooned outcast Dill, given by 6th grader Michael
Schaffer flashing like a pistol whip, is rescued innocence. He wisely gloms
himself onto the island of sanity which is the Finch household in the sea of
confusion which is the world of the play. They, in turn, welcome him.
The interactions amongst the three are excellent—energetic,
committed and true, they are the hammer which drives the message home.
I don’t like paying attention to the age of the actor. It
should not be a mitigating factor in judging the worth of a performance. And it
is condescending to point it out arbitrarily. In this case, I say it to
indicate that if these fine, young actors erred, it was by making excellent,
young mistakes.
The three of you chose strong, committed intentions which
were totally clear in your bodies and vocal tone but sometimes just beyond the
level of your diction to deliver with complete clarity. Good for you! Reach for
it and let the craft grow to fill the artistic image you see in your head. An
excellent error. And it impinged fully only twice in the course of the play: at
the top when we had to get used to the pace of your speech, and when you sneak
upstairs to watch the trial.
And the only reason I mention it at all is that this lovely
shortfall was the only significant one the
whole evening after the lights went out. It was a marvelous actualization of
the parable.
Throughout the performance, punctuating thematic climaxes
and indicating passage of time, Ms. Roberts continues the hymn to sooth us from
one point to the next and give our hearts a chance to sigh. It is a most
wondrous touch. Ms. Roberts deserves double thanks for this soulful addition
and the purity of the voice behind it.
The play flies by. This represents more than a brisk pace.
Director Chris Melohn admits that he was not afraid make cuts to the original
script. But he says when people question the artistic integrity of cutting a
literary property, he simply asks, “Did you miss anything?”
No, Mr. Melohn, we did not. You’ve achieved every bit of the
spirit and imbued it to the cast.
The Dennis Flyer Memorial Theatre has 600 seats. For our own
benefits, we should fill them this weekend. A play of this quality done in this
measure at this price deserves an audience and then some. But more so, we, the
audience, need to bring our non-theatrical friends to plays like this.
The latest word is that the technical difficulties will be
accounted for and the performances this weekend will go on as scheduled. See To
Kill a Mockingbird this weekend with
someone from the office you’ve been meaning to get to know. They’ll thank you
for it, and you’ll both grow.
To Kill A Mockingbird
By Nelle Harper Lee
Adapted for the stage by Christopher Sergel
Directed by Chris Melohn
Mainstage Center
for the Arts
At The Dennis Flyer Memorial Theatre
College Drive
Blackwood, New
Jersey
856-227-3091
My reviews are written exclusively for STAGE Magazine online.
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