Review - Twelve Angry Men - Soulpepper, Toronto

✭✭✭✭✩

by Reginald Rose, directed by Alan Dilworth

Soulpepper Theatre Company, Young Centre, Toronto

June 17-July 26, 2014;

January 22-February 13, 2016

Juror: “I’m sick and tired of facts! You can twist ‘em anyway you like”

Soulpepper has just opened a solid, enjoyable production of Twelve Angry Men directed by Alan Dilworth that shows off the virtues of the company’s ensemble acting. The last professional production Toronto saw was a touring production from Roundabout Theatre Company in 2008 directed by Scott Ellis. The Roundabout version was tauter and more polished than Soulpepper’s but Dilworth highlights aspects of the play that Ellis did not. Even if you know how the play ends from a previous staging or from the famous 1957 film version starring Henry Fonda, the new production is well worth seeing just to enjoy how skillfully the plot unfolds.

Rose’s 1954 teleplay rewritten for the stage in 1955 concerns an all-male jury charged with deciding the fate of a 16-year-old boy accused of killing his father. It’s a sweltering day and most of the jurors want to finish their work as soon as possible. All except Juror 8 are convinced the trial proved the boy is guilty. Juror 8, however, is not convinced that the trial has shown the boy’s guilt “beyond all reasonable doubt”, the key criterion upon which the jury must make its decision. Over the objections of two particularly obnoxious men, Juror 8 tries to convince the others why he thinks there is “reasonable doubt” in this case. The play is exciting not only because it shows one man holding to his beliefs in the face of massive opposition, but it also demonstrates the triumph of logic and compassion over fuzzy thinking and prejudice.

Dilworth has used an alley configuration for the seating in the Michael Young Theatre of the Young Centre, dividing the audience in two halves to the east and west of the long narrow platform of Yannick Larivée’s set where the action takes place. This has the effect of emphasizing that the process of jury deliberation itself is under scrutiny. Lavrivée keeps the setting in the US in the mid-1950s but finds enough variety in men’s suits of the time to reflect quite well the personality of each character in what he wears.

Beside a certain tentativeness in the pacing, the main flaw of the production is purely technical. During the second act a storm breaks out, reflecting the growing storm within the jury room. Dilworth decides to put this storm on stage by turning on rain machines in front of both stage openings. Not only is this unnecessary but it mars our attention because we have to look through falling droplets and listen over their sound for most of the act. The fact that one machine was malfunctioning and issuing droplets throughout the first act was annoying enough, but to have it happen on both sides was simply an example of production values for their own sake. Richard Feren’s transient sound effects are all that is needed.

Besides this, Dilworth decides to use parts of Kenyon Hopkins’ score for the movie to frame each act. The melodramatic sound may have suited a film from 1957, but it lends an unwanted atmosphere of kitsch to what is still a relevant, hard-hitting drama. In any case, since we are watching a play, why remind us of the film at all? One hopes, our experience of the play live on stage will supersede our memories of the film.

Otherwise, Dilworth’s approach is well conceived. Casting Stuart Hughes as the Juror 8 has a major effect in refocussing attention on the central issue of the play. Hughes is not the infinitely patient type that Henry Fonda is in the film nor is he the passionate type that Richard Thomas was in the Roundabout production. Hughes’s Juror 8 is thoughtful and not a little disturbed by the lack of gravity his fellow jurors bring to their job and the haste they are willing to use in a decision that will condemn a teenager to death. What Hughes and Dilworth emphasize is the dispassionately critical attitude Juror 8 brings to both the trial and to his fellow jurors.

It is all too easy to direct the play and act the part of Juror 8 as if Juror 8 believes that the accused is innocent. The great virtue of Dilworth’s approach and Hughes’s performance is that the focus is always on the question of “reasonable doubt”. Guilt or innocence are simpler concepts than “reasonable doubt” and even within the play, other jurors accuse Juror 8 of trying to defend the accused teenager, but both Dilworth and Hughes make it clear that what Juror 8 wants is for the jury to look more closely at the facts of the case to see if doubt exists. Hughes’s low-key approach to the character means Juror 8 appears less as a hero fighting a battle than as a confidently rational man who has the insight that the case is more complex than it appears.

The solidity of Hughes’ Juror 8 is countered by the ultimately deflatable bluster of Juror 3 (Joseph Ziegler) and Juror 10 (William Webster). These are Juror 8’s most obstinate opponents because both are prejudiced – 3 from personal circumstances, 10 from social conditioning. Webster is very strong as Juror 10, and would be even stronger if he dropped his faux-Chicago accent. (Juror 11, the immigrant watchmaker well played by Jordan Pettle, is the only one who needs an accent.) Webster pours such bile into Juror 10’s speech where 10 reveals the shocking extent of his bigotry against the defendant, that he is like a rabid dog others shy away from for fear of contamination.

The source of Juror 3’s prejudice is clear from the beginning when he tells the others about how his son has rejected him. He lends Juror 3’s Act 2 speech of rage against those who have turned against him the undercurrent of a knowledge he has tried to suppress. When Juror 8 finally names it, Ziegler shows how Juror 3 is suddenly stricken with bafflement and crushing shame at his folly.

Two other actors deserve special mention. Tim Campbell is particularly convincing as Juror 4, the stockbroker, who is like Juror 8 in his taste for logic but unlike Juror 8 in his lack of compassion. Campbell shows that Juror 4’s general sense of superiority to the others has blinded his full understanding of what he sees. Robert Nasmith is wonderful as the elderly Juror 9, a man whom the others are ready to disregard because of his age but who turns out to be even more observant of significant details than Juror 8. Nasmith avoids the cliché of the “feisty” senior and instead gives us a man who knows he has insights the others do not and, like Juror 8, simply insists that other hear him out.

Beside his clear focus on the central issue of the play, Dilworth show he also understands the point of play’s title. As late as 1961 the United States Supreme Court had ruled that a state could exclude women from serving on juries, a decision that it did not overturn until 1975. While Rose’s play is an examination of the importance of “reasonable doubt”, it is also an examination of the behaviour of all-male groups. Given that the jury is to rule on the Oedipal crime of a boy killing his father, Rose relishes depicting the outrage of most of the men to a crime that they all perceive as a threat. Yet, their debate frequently manifests itself as nothing more than posturing, intimidation, combativeness and rallying of followers for ideological territory. More than once they are literally at each other’s throats when, ironically, they are supposed to be ruling on a murder. Under Dilworth the Soulpepper ensemble captures all too clearly the weaknesses inherent in all-male decision-making bodies.

Thus, even if you already know the plot, Soulpepper’s production takes a fresh look at the play and finds more complexity beneath the surface than others have. The strength of the play comes out in Juror 10’s terrible outpouring of prejudice. The race, religion or colour of the defendant is never mentioned, so it is all the more chilling to hear people today repeat the same sentiments as Juror 10 and call for the extermination of the objects of their irrational hatred. In Rose’s play, the other men shrink away from Juror 10 in disgust. If only that what would happen in real life.

©Christopher Hoile

Note: This review is a Stage Door exclusive.

For tickets, visit www.soulpepper.ca.

2014-06-18

Twelve Angry Men