Theater Review: Harper Lee's To Kill a Mockingbird

 

                           Harper Lee's "To Kill a Mockingbird"

It’s easy to tut-tut about the horrifyingly uncivilized events in “To Kill a Mockingbird” until you listen to the daily news. It makes you wonder how much we’ve learned about fairness. 

You recall the story: Writer Harper Lee grew up in the Depression-era South (in Monroeville, Alabama), when black people were slaves or farmhands and not allowed to be much more. Her 1960 novel “To Kill a Mockingbird” is loosely based on the trial of a black man wrongly arrested for the rape of a white woman. Lee was ten at the time.

The book won the Pulitzer Prize in 1961 and was made into an Oscar-winning film. It has since become a play, and is in fact the highest-grossing in Broadway history.

The latest version, a rewrite by Aaron Sorkin (of “A Few Good Men” and “West Wing” fame), won Tonys on Broadway and is now on a multi-year national tour. It is at San Diego Civic Theatre through December 4.

Emmy-winner Richard Thomas plays Atticus Finch, the attorney assigned to defend Tom Robinson (Yaegel T. Welch), a black man accused by the bigoted Bob Ewell (Joey Collins), who claims that Tom raped his teenage daughter Mayella (Arianna Gayle Stucki). Mayella seems to cower in the corner the whole time.

Directed by Bartlett Sher, the background story is largely told by three teens: Finch’s mouthy tomboy daughter Scout (Melanie Moore), typical teen son Jem (Justin Mark) and visiting friend Dill Harris (Steven Lee Johnson), who is extraordinarily interested in a reclusive neighbor named Boo Radley (Travis Jones). Time jumps back and forth, and set pieces roll in and out at a brisk pace as the story is told and the trial proceeds.

Though it’s clear to Atticus from the start that his client Tom is not guilty, he’s up against entrenched racism and bigotry – and an all-white jury definitely not of Tom’s peers who are determined to convict him.

Judge Taylor (Richard Poe) is white but interested in the truth, though it’s likely he knows what the all-white jury will find regardless of the truth.

Maycomb’s ideas about fairness may even be said to be reflected in Miriam Buether’s weathered set for the courtroom and the Finch front porch.

But in this version, Atticus’ motherly black housekeeper Calpurnia (Jacqueline Williams) plays a larger part, as she calls him on his privilege and they plot to try to fix it together.

Atticus puts it this way: “We have to heal this wound or we will never stop bleeding. We can’t go on like this.” 

Atticus seems to believe things will change for the better, noting that “Our darkest days are always followed by our best hours.”

Let’s hope he will prove right.

The details

“To Kill a Mockingbird” plays through Dec. 4, 2022 at San Diego Civic Theatre, 1100 Third Ave. at B Street in downtown San Diego.

Shows Friday at 8 p.m.; Saturday at 2 and 8 p.m.; Sunday at 1 and  6:30 p.m.

Tickets: https://www.broadwaysd.com/upcoming-events/to-kill-a-mockingbird/