Bringing a story as well known as To Kill A Mockingbird to stage is no mean feat. Many theatre-goers will have such strong impressions of how the piece should look. But under Bartlett Sher’s direction, Aaron Sorkin’s play achieves a modern relevance for Harper Lee’s work, while retaining a real sense of time and place, and the beautiful lyricism of her words.
To Kill a Mockingbird
The staging is modern, with a lot of moving parts, but it is skilfully handled and distracts as little as possible from the acting. One tiny highlight for me was Atticus – or perhaps Richard Coyle as himself – gently repairing a chair leg as he went to stack it on a table.
Lee’s seminal story is set in the deeply divided Alabama of 1934, although much of its message is still sadly relevant today. The book was inspired her own childhood and sold more than 45 million copies worldwide. It won the Pulitzer Prize for Literature and was for a long time top of the banned book lists.
The play’s central focus is The Trial – the trial of a Black man for the rape of a 19-year-old white woman. Because of the structure of the play there is a scene where Atticus Finch (Richard Coyle) is sitting beside Tom Robinson (Aaron Shosanya) in the courtroom, long before we find that the Judge (Stephen Boxer) has persuaded Atticus to take the case, or even what the case might be. But that is a very minor quibble.
The eyes of innocents
Tom Robinson’s tale, and that of his neighbours, is told in flashback, through the eyes and ears of Scout Finch (Anna Munden), her older brother Jem (Gabriel Scott) and their new friend for the summer Dill Harris (Dylan Malyn, making his stage debut). The flashbacks from the young actors as adults interweave with them playing their childhood selves, and early on the chronology jarred a little, but I found I settled into the rhythm of it quickly.
The young actors’ recollections are those of children and, like children everywhere, they say what they see and what they think. The ‘jokes’ that result are hilarious, serious and delivered with great panache. The trio really were superb, with Jem in particular capturing that awkward phase between boyhood and manhood.
A society of layers of disfunction
The layers of Maycomb society are tightly drawn. Sorkin and Sher really excel here, in both the scripting and direction. An actor needs only to step on stage for their ‘position’ in this society to be clear.
The distinctions between the ‘good people’ of the town and the farmers, between the farmers and the more indigent white, between each of those and the Black (slave descendent) community, are beautifully explored. As is the gulf between all those groups and the intellectuals like the judge (Stephen Boxer) and Finch himself.
Themes of alcoholism and intra-family sexual and physical abuse (and mothers gone too soon) are all too present, but the deep undercurrent is that of who belongs to which ‘tribe’. But for Tom Robinson’s involvement, the ‘situation’ at the Ewell house might never have been discussed.
As a side note here, the sexual assault of Mayella Ewell (Evie Hargreaves) is not ‘glossed over’ in any way. One might be cautious in taking younger guests, even though many of us read the book in our early teens.
Coming of age
Atticus, a single father, is ably assisted (superseded) in raising his children by long-time family servant Calpurnia (Andrea Davy). Both of these performance are outstanding.
Atticus encourages kindness and empathy in his children, trying to teach them to see the good in everyone. But finds these qualities pushed to the limits in trying to uncover a truth the town seems determined to hide.
His neutrality becomes itself a problem. Jem, now growing into a young man, sees some of his father’s passivity as cowardliness. When confronted by a drunk Bob Ewell (Oscar Pearce) Atticus doesn’t want to fight him, until his family is insulted. And then he wrestles with his conscience for his reaction. Jem comes to see his courage soon enough.
The night before the trial Atticus sets up a night watch outside the jail. When the children arrive – unbidden – they are forced to confront the ugliness of their neighbours at first hand. It is Scout who accidentally diffuses the situation, but the children are very affected by the encounter. As Atticus reminds them: “A mob is a place where people go to take a break from their conscience.”
Giving voice to the unheard
The relationship between Atticus and Cal (almost like siblings but with that unspoken, unbridgeable gulf) is one of the strong points of the play. She will stand by him whatever happens, but is deeply aware that he acts from his own motivations and not necessarily hers or those of the wider Black community. She will not be ‘grateful’ for his actions.
Sorkin’s great contribution to To Kill A Mockingbird and its history is to give voice to Calpurnia and Tom – far from the docility of the ‘grateful’ community of the 1962 film adaptation starring Gregory Peck. In moving the focus on from the ‘White Saviour’ a bit, but not too far, it shows these motives to us clearly for what they are.
In this, Sorkin retains Atticus’s main flaw with a deft hand. A man who sees the good in everyone will excuse that which should not be excused.
Not every story is the one you heard in town
The story has its twists as well, to remind us that not everyone is quite what they seem, or can be so easily pigeonholed. Boo Radley (Harry Atwell) is central to the story but hardly seen. He has long been suspected in the neighbourhood for a long-past crime he didn’t commit. The children’s summer mission has been to catch a glimpse of this reclusive man, but they fail to recognise his acts of friendship for what they are until the very end, when they really matter.
Finally, when it seems that Arthur Radley (Boo) might be blamed for the death of Mr Ewell, Scout has a realisation: “It would be like killing a mockingbird”, it would be a sin because of his innocence.
And there’s Link Deas (Simon Hepworth), believed to be the ‘town drunk’. But he talks with the children after Dill’s horror at the courtroom scenes. He carries his own story of the prejudices of the time, and shares with them his story and his secret bottle in a bag. As Deas tells Dill: “When horror comes to supper it comes dressed just like a Christian.”
The laws of Jim Crow may well be gone, but the same problems still face the world today. Sorkin’s marvellous adaptation of a much-loved classic is a reminder that we need to be mindful of who we are, and who we become.
General information
I attended the press screening performance which was also BSL interpreted. Any hearing impaired theatre-goers should check the seating plan, as the interpreter was only partially visible from my seat. Some seats have restricted legroom, but the theatre scores highly on general accessibility.
This production of To Kill a Mocking Bird ran to sold-out audiences on Broadway (2018) and in London’s West End, and is beginning its tour of the UK and Ireland in Leeds.
The play runs at Leeds Playhouse until Saturday 4 October. Box office: 0113 213 7700. info@leedsplayhouse.org.uk
