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by Christopher Sergel, directed by Susan H. Schulman

Stratford Festival, Avon Theatre, Stratford

May 30-October 27, 2007

"Mockingbird Slow to Take Flight"

Harper Lee’s Pulitzer Prize-winning novel, “To Kill a Mockingbird” from 1960, is one of the most frequently taught novels in American high schools.  It was made into a famous film in 1962 by Robert Mulligan starring Gregory Peck as the Southern small town lawyer Atticus Finch.  In 1987 it was adapted for the stage by Christopher Sergel and it is this version that has just opened at the Stratford Festival.  In the theatre the novel becomes a solid middlebrow play that raises important issues at a comfortable distance while serving as a showcase for fine acting.

Sergel has condensed the novel’s three years into one.  Following a tedious tradition in adapting novels to the stage he has retained Jean Louise as the narrator who watches her younger tomboy self, nicknamed Scout, participate in the action.  It is 1935 in the small town of Maycomb, Alabama.  The story is primarily about how Scout and her brother Jem come to realize that Atticus Finch, the boring, unathletic man who is their father, is actually a kind of hero.  When Finch takes on the hopeless cause of defending a black man against the charge of rape of a white woman, the children are angry about the constant taunts they receive in school.  Yet, once they witness the trial and see the truth of the matter, they recognize the courage in their father who is willing to fight for justice against a sea of prejudice.  As a play Sergel’s adaptation is pedestrian.  Jean Louise’s narration and scene setting is largely unnecessary.  The entire first act is exposition with the main drama concentrated in the trial scene of the second act.  Sergel’s condensation of the action means that the play seems to end about five times before it is actually over.

Nevertheless, what makes the play worth watching is the high level of the acting from the principals.  Peter Donaldson gives a wonderfully nuanced performance as Finch, able to let us see anger, frustration and strength shining behind his outwardly placid exterior.  In 10-year-old Abigail Winter-Culliford as Scout, 13-year-old Thomas Murray as Jem and Grade 7 student Spencer Walker as their friend Dill, the Festival has found a truly remarkable trio of child actors.  There may be some slippage of their Southern accents, but they give very natural performances and have strong enough voices to carry all through the Avon Theatre without sounding forced.  Winter-Culliford is a particular delight and maintains focus and intensity even in the long periods when she does not speak.        

Dion Johnstone is absolutely riveting as Tom Robinson, the young black man accused of rape.  In his testimony at the trial he portrays a complex mixture of emotions--desire to tell the truth but to protect his accuser tempered with fear of reprisals and the court’s disbelief.  Michelle Giroux acquits herself well in the unenviable role of Jean Louise that, at least under Susan H. Schulman’s direction, requires her to remain on stage silently watching the action for extended periods of time.

A host of minor roles are all well played.  Barbara Barnes-Hopkins is Finch’s stern but loving housekeeping Calpurnia.  Keith Dinicol is the liberal sheriff Heck Tate, torn between upholding the law while aware of its unfairness towards black people.  Joyce Campion is the ancient but verbally antagonistic Mrs. Dubose. Paul Essiembre is Walter Cunningham Sr., who can be turned from leading a lynch mob when a child recalls his conscience.  Patricia Collins as the insightful Miss Maudie, David Francis as the perceptive Judge Taylor, Roy Lewis as realist Reverend Sykes and Laird Mackintosh as the pathologically shy Boo Radley are all memorable. 

As for the two villains of the piece, Bob Ewell and his daughter Mayella, one wishes that Schulman had turned down the hysteria in the performances of Wayne Best and Dayna Tekatch down a notch or two.  Shouting and screaming do not enhance the characters’ viciousness.

One of Schulman’s best ideas is to give the black community greater presence than is evident in Sergel’s adaptation by including six spirituals sung at significant moments in the action given moving performances by a six-member choir integrated into the action.

While Charlotte Dean’s costumes capture the period and various levels of society, her set looks the model for a set rather than the finished product.  She constructs the walls of the main two buildings, the Finch house and the Radley house out of materials that become transparent when lit from behind.  This is meant to give a sense of unreality to the play, but one wonders whether Dean should not have gone farther and given the whole production a more stylized look.  As it is, the set looks like a low budget attempt at realism.  Kevin Fraser’s lighting is as sensitive as usual but Schulman has him abruptly change cues for Jean Louise’s narration as if its separateness from the main action literally needed to be highlighted.   

Sergel’s condensation of the action has the unwanted effect of giving the play a self-congratulatory air.  When Miss Maudie, the play’s main moralizer, says that the fact that the jury deliberated three hours over the fate of Tom Robinson is a “step closer to tolerance”.  This is an overly optimistic summation of the issues the play raises.  You wish someone would ask how many wrongfully convicted men have to die before “tolerance” is achieved, if, indeed, given people’s capacity for hatred, it ever can be achieved?                    

©Christopher Hoile

Note: This review is a Stage Door exclusive.

Photo: Keith Dinicol, Peter Donaldson and Abigail Winter-Culliford. ©Claus Andersen.