Reviews 2014
Reviews 2014
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by Christopher Sergel, directed by Allen MacInnis
Young People’s Theatre, Toronto
October 9-November 2, 2014
Atticus: “You never really understand a person until you consider things from his point of view”
Young People’s Theatre has taken a bold step in presenting its production of To Kill a Mockingbird. Harper Lee’s Pulitzer Prize-winning novel from 1960 may be one of the most frequently taught novels in American high schools and it may have been made into a multi-award-winning film in 1962, yet the book has always stirred up controversy. It has been a permanent fixture on the American Library Association’s list of banned and challenged books in US libraries. In the period 1990-99 it was number 41 on its list. One might think that over time people would become more accepting of an acknowledged American classic, but in the period 2000-2009, Mockingbird actually moved up to number 21.
The depiction of racism, the use of racial epithets, the discussion of rape, a girl who chooses to dress in boy’s clothes – those are all among the reasons why the book has been challenged. Those are also reasons why it’s a book young people need to read. Christopher Sergel’s 1987 stage adaptation makes it a story that a group can experience and discuss together. Normally, Sergel’s adaptation runs about two hours. The YPT version directed by Allen MacInnis runs only 90 minutes. To reduce the running time, MacInnis has cut out secondary characters like two of the Finch family’s neighbours, Miss Maudie and Miss Stephanie, Tom Robinson’s wife and the Court Clerk. Most importantly, he has cut the character of Jean Louise Finch, the older version of Atticus’ daughter Scout Finch who narrated the story. This job is assigned to Scout Finch herself.
The result of this cutting means that the story loses one of its story-lines. The first story we encounter is how Scout, her older brother Jem and their friend Dill try to get the mysterious “Boo” Radley to come out of his house where, according to legend, his father has kept him chained up for 15 years. The second story is how the lawyer Atticus Finch takes on the case of black man Tom Robinson, who has been accused of rape by the lower class white girl Mayella Ewell, daughter of Bob Ewell, the town drunk. What’s lost is the overarching story of how these two incidents had an impact on Scout by preventing her from ever having such an innocent view of the world again. The mockingbird of the title is a symbol of innocence in the novel and its killing can refer both to what happens physically to Tom Robinson and what happens psychologically to Scout. Even though the young Scout narrates in the YPT production, the emphasis on a change of attitude is clearer in Jem and Dill than it is in Scout.
This shift of emphasis might be considered a flaw in a production geared to adults, but in a production directed at young people from ages 11 and up, it’s more important to emphasize the children’s ostracism of Boo and society’s ostracism of African-Americans and allow the confrontation with these story elements to occur within the audience rather than via an onstage narrator. Besides this, MacInnis’s abridgement condenses Sergels overlong exposition, gives the play greater focus on the issues at stake and tightens the ending.
Jeff Miller gives an understated Atticus Finch, who always keeps his emotions in check. Miller gives us the feeling that a life of seeing the worst elements of society has taken a toll on his character and that he would like to preserve his children’s innocence for as long as possible. Yet, he is nothing if not realistic and knows that innocence cannot last forever. His emphasis in the trial scene is completely on determining what most logically happened and in his summing up we almost feel he has too much faith in the power of reason to remove ingrained prejudice.
MacInnis directs Mark Crawford as the prosecuting attorney Mr. Gilmer in exactly the same way. Crawford, his character confined to a wheelchair, does nothing to play to the (unseen) jury’s emotions or to suggest that Gilmer himself is prejudiced. Crawford, who also plays Boo Radley, creates a great difference between the two characters by both voice and gesture.
With the younger Scout as narrator it’s not surprising that she should feel that everything changed during the summer of the trial without being to explain what that change actually was. Caroline Toal brings out all the enthusiasm and excitement of a girl imbued with an overwhelmingly positive view of the world. Yet, Toal also shows how the events of the trial begin to cloud that view. The clouds don’t stay for long but Toal gives the impression that Scout will only realize their impact later on.
In contrast Noah Spitzer as Jem and Tal Shulman as Dill register their outrage immediately at what they see as a miscarriage of justice. Perhaps because they are older they can better articulate the anger they feel. All three actors, all adults, are excellent at playing children without any clichéd behaviour. Spitzer conveys the two sides of Jem’s character – the one who takes his protective role as Scout’s big brother seriously, and the other that is still a little boy just as impressed with rumour as she is. Shulman plays Dill as the kind of intelligent nerd who is a bit too anxious to prove he is just a regular kid like the others.
As the accused man Tom Robinson, Matthew G. Brown’s unpretentious dignity and plainspokenness ought to be enough to convince any reasonable person that he is absolutely telling the truth. The problem is that we are not dealing with reasonable people. Jessica Moss, as his accuser Mayella Ewell, presents a chaos of conflicting emotions held together only by fear of her father and fear of what society will say if she tells the truth. Hume Baugh as Mayella’s father Bob, is frightening in his fury and blatant prejudice.
Providing emotional and social support for Atticus are his housekeeper Calpunia and the sheriff Heck Tate. Lisa Berry shows that the mutual respect between Atticus and Calpurnia runs deep. Calpurnia may be paid as Atticus housekeeper, but she has become his children’s de facto mother and is comic only because she cares so much for them. W. Joseph Matheson plays Heck Tate as a man of few words, but Matheson makes those few words count for much showing sympathy for Atticus in taking on a defence he knows he will lose and in allowing accidents of fate to stand in for the lack of formal justice.
Dana Osborne’s set is a model of imaginative simplicity. Four pillars are topped with cut-out designs that suggest both trees and the wooden fretwork of 19th-century houses, both of which make up the environment where Scout grows up. Lesely Wilkinson’s lighting is essential in transforming Osborne’s set from indoor to outdoor locations and for creating the feeling of humid days and spooky nights.
Allen MacInnis’s direction presents the two incidents in Scout’s life with such clarity that that it positively invites discussion about how such injustice regarding Robinson and Boo comes to pass. MacInnis’s restraint in depicting Atticus’ emotions versus the wildness seen in the Ewells and in the lynch mob aptly expose the clash of two forces, reason and emotion, that lie at the heart of the action. It would be nice to think that Harper Lee’s story depicted a situation only of her own time. Yet, the YPT production has such an uncomfortable resonance with current events, that the play can serve as a springboard for discussions not just about the past but about our own time as well.
©Christopher Hoile
Note: This is a Stage Door exclusive.
Photos: (from top) Jeff Miller and Caroline Toal; Matthew G. Brown, Mark Crawford and Jeff Miller. ©2014 Cylla von Tiedemann.
For tickets, visit www.youngpeoplestheatre.ca.
2014-10-12
To Kill a Mockingbird