Hartford's 'Mockingbird' Skims the Surface

"To Kill a Mockingbird"

Adapted from Harper Lee's novel by Christopher Sergel; directed by Michael Wilson; scenic design by Jeff Cowie; costume design by David C. Woolard; lighting design by Rui Rita; original music and sound design by John Gromada; wig designer, Mark Adam Rampmeyer; fight choreographer, Mark Olsen; vocal and dialect coach, Robert H. Davis

Cast in order of appearance:

Jean Louise Finch, Hallie Foote; Scout, Olivia Scott; Jem, Henry Hodges; Atticus, Matthew Modine; Calpurnia, Pat Bowie; Maudie Atkinson, Stephanie Crawford, Mrs. Dubose, Jennifer Harmon; Mr. Nathan Radley, Judge Taylor, Nafe Katter; Arthur (Boo) Radley, Mr. Gilmer, Devon Abner; Dill, Andrew Shipman; Heck Tate, Walter Cunningham, James DeMarse; Reverend Sykes, Charles Turner; Mayella Ewell, Virginia Kull; Bob Ewell, Mike Boland; Tom Robinson, Douglas Lyons; Helen Robinson, Daralyn Jay

Performances: Now through April 4, Hartford Stage, 50 Church Street, Hartford, CT

Box Office: 860-520-7247 or www.hartfordstage.org

Before his death in 1993, literary publisher Christopher Sergel had made several revisions to his original 1970 stage adaptation of Harper Lee's Pulitzer Prize-winning novel To Kill a Mockingbird. Perhaps he should have left well enough alone. The version currently being performed by Connecticut's Hartford Stage is the most recent, but not necessarily the best.

This adaptation injects an adult Scout (a/k/a Jean Louise Finch) as narrator and replaces evocative interactive scenes with bland description. The role affords actress Hallie Foote (daughter of Horton Foote who adapted Lee's novel for the screen) the opportunity to enjoy a familial connection to the material, but dramatic tension is ultimately lost in translation. Foote's Jean Louise seems distanced from the memories she introduces, and her adult life unaffected by the significant events of her past. The feisty seven-year-old from whose perspective the story is told is never evident in Foote's grown woman. Had director Michael Wilson chosen to keep Jean Louise onstage throughout the production, hovering and reacting, reliving rather than just remembering, he might have strengthened Foote's performance and its impact.

To Kill a Mockingbird is as much a poignant lesson in childrearing as it is a treatise against racial bigotry and injustice. Through the innocent eyes of the youthful Scout (Olivia Scott), her older brother Jem (Henry Hodges), and their outspoken neighborhood friend Dill (Andrew Shipman), we peer into the poor, heat-seared, small-town world of 1933 Alabama where surface civilities hide the anger of white supremacists now frustrated by an economic depression and changing times. This is a pre-Civil Rights South where mob rule still sways the legal system and lynchings still go unpunished. So when widowed father and attorney Atticus Finch takes on the defense of a black man Tom Robinson accused of raping a local  white girl, he and his children become the targets of gang violence and hatred, and his resolve that every citizen has the right to a fair trial is brutally tested.

As the highly principled but reluctant hero Atticus, film and television star Matthew Modine gives a competent but uninspired portrayal. He is suitably affectionate with his nonconforming children, and his bemused pride at their troublesome independence is warmly paternal. Yet he shows none of Atticus' own eccentricities that make him the subject of neighborhood gossip. Modine also plays his character's world-weariness too heavily, stifling the growing passion for justice he should feel as he becomes more and more committed to his innocent client's cause. Where Atticus' courtroom summation should be as much a journey of self-discovery as it is a plea for what is humanly right, Modine makes it an academic argument, failing to generate any emotional fire or personally invested powers of persuasion. What should be a climactic moment crackling with unwavering truth lacks punch. As a result, the heart-wrenching revelation of the trial's tragic outcome also falls flat.

This disappointing Mockingbird is most successful when the children are front and center. Whether simultaneously exciting and scaring themselves by trying to get a glimpse of the reclusive Boo Radley or defending Atticus' reputation by pummeling schoolyard bullies, Scott, Hodges and Shipman shine.

As Scout, the tomboy who wears her heart on the bib of her rumpled coveralls, Scott is a delightfully determined feminist in the making. Troubled by the teasing she gets for not being the typically demur and respectful Southern belle, she nonetheless refuses to acquiesce quietly to wearing barrettes and dresses. She also exuberantly engages in fighting whenever her family is threatened. Scott plays Scout as a vigilant moral compass ruled only by her unadulterated young instincts. As such she is the emotional center of the play, and she carries her responsibility admirably.

Hodges as big brother Jem is also quite moving. He is equal parts instigator and protector, caught between adolescence and manhood. At times he is teasing and playful, other times frightened and vulnerable. But once his eyes have been opened to the cruelty of racial inequality, he becomes his father's rock solid right hand.

The dynamic Shipman as Dill provides a bit of warm-hearted comic relief. An indefatigable intellectual whose colorful character is modeled after Harper Lee's own childhood neighbor and lifelong friend Truman Capote, he is a c*cksure little oddball, fearless, eager for experiences, and hungry to learn despite being exiled to his aunt's for the summer when his mother and step-father don't want him around. Wearing his daring as comfortably as his little man's bow tie, Shipman is a self-assured nonconformist to Scott's frustrated rebel and Hodges' dutiful diplomat.

The always competent Hartford Stage design team has created a physical world that suggests rather than realistically creates small town Maycomb, Alabama. Scenes morph fluidly from the Finch home and neighborhood to the jailhouse, courtroom, Robinson field house, and schoolyard. Subtle area lighting evokes hot summer days, soft bedtime goodnights, tense evening vigils, and one particularly dangerous Halloween eve. John Gromada's eerie mood music is particularly effective in underscoring the children's fear of and fascination with the mysterious Boo Radley. It gives full dimension to an unseen character whose presence is nonetheless essential in establishing the divide between the cruel social arbiters of the community and the gentle misfits who rise up against intolerance and right perilous wrongs.

While To Kill a Mockingbird may not be as ground-breaking and controversial as it was in 1960 when Harper Lee first saw it published, its humanity and call for justice are still powerful and timeless. If only the adults in this production connected as passionately and honestly to the material as the children do, it could still live and breathe as vibrant theater. Unfortunately, director Wilson, Modine, Foote et al give this adaptation of a classic piece of American literature a cursory reading at best.

PHOTOS by T. Charles Erickson: Hallie Foote as Jean Louise Finch; Olivia Scott as Scout and Matthew Modine as Atticus; Henry Hodges as Jem and Olivia Scott

 

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