Review: TO KILL A MOCKINGBIRD at Hippodrome Theatre

Chances are, if you're a product of the American education system, you read Harper Lee's 1960 Pulitzer Prize-winning novel, TO KILL A MOCKINGBIRD, in high school or college. And if you didn't, you've likely seen the 1962 film of the same name featuring Gregory Peck in perhaps his most famed role, lawyer and bastion of decency, Atticus Finch. The plot involving Atticus and his children, Scout and Jem, is in some ways, quite "straightforward." Atticus is asked to represent Tom Robinson, a black man falsely accused of raping a white woman. It's deep South, Alabama, 1934. It's not going to end well. However, it's what happens along the way, and afterwards, that makes this novel so worth reading, and this play, so worth watching.

Credit goes to many in this top flight production which opened on Broadway in December 2018 and now has come to Baltimore's France-Merrick Performing Arts Center's Hippodrome Theatre. American playwright, screenwriter and film director Aaron Sorkin has done a masterful job in adapting Lee's novel for the stage-not surprising for a man whose accolades include an Academy Award, a BAFTA Award, five Primetime Emmy Awards and three Golden Globes.

Sorkin once said of his writing style that "the writing experience is very much like a date. It's not unusual that I'm really funny here, really smart there, and maybe showing some anger over here..." The audience experiences this first hand with the humorous exchanges between Atticus and his kids as well as other characters like Calpurnia (Jacqueline Williams), Judge Taylor (David Manis), Link Deas (Jeff Still); highly intelligent observations and comic asides from Dill Harris (Morgan Bernhard), anger which percolates, oozes and explodes in moments throughout this 3-hour production, all delivered in a perfectly balanced, thoughtful, moving performance.

Sorkin's script offers a number of nods to modern troubles, the widening rift between right and left, the unhealed wound of the American Civil War, police brutality especially against people of color, etc.

Richard Thomas - forever "John-Boy" Walton for many - headlines as Atticus. Unlike Peck whose Finch seemed gravitas itself made human, Thomas' Atticus is less mythical. While Peck commanded, Thomas' Atticus is more relatable as the single somewhat harried father trying to raise his children, understand why Calpurnia is being "passive aggressive", help out his neighbors, while nurturing a world view that, while idealistically advanced, is dangerously naïve, as he, and those around him, come to learn.

MOCKINGBIRD is directed by Tony Award-winner Bartlett Sher who gets top flight performances out of all of his cast; special kudos go to Bernhard's Dill, Melanie Moore's Scout and Daniel Neale's Jem, who somehow manage to convincingly portray children despite having all left puberty a distant memory, years before.

Scenic designer Miriam Buether's modular set is wonderfully simple, pieces weaving in and off the stage effortlessly, as it transforms from the Finch home to a jailhouse to a courtroom to Boo Radley's back window.

TO KILL A MOCKINGBIRD continues its run at Baltimore's Hippodrome, Wed.-Sat., March 15-19th.

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