Review: TO KILL A MOCKINGBIRD at Gammage Auditorium

Aaron Sorkin's stage adaptation of the classic novel TO KILL A MOCKINGBIRD is playing at Gammage Auditorium through December 11th. The Academy Award winning screenwriter has reimagined the book and crafted a satisfying theatre experience with his trademark crackling dialogue serving a feast of material for the show's flawless cast.

Harper Lee's acclaimed 1960 bildungsroman tells the story of Atticus Finch, attorney and widower raising his children in Depression era fictional Maycomb, Alabama. Atticus is asked to defend a black man, Tom Robinson, falsely accused of raping a white woman. Fully aware of the community backlash certain to come his way, he accepts the case hopeful he can appeal to the jury's foundational goodness.

His six-year-old daughter Jean Louise (nicknamed "Scout") is the book's narrator while his teenage son Jem and housekeeper Calpurnia present as foils to Atticus' absolute belief in accommodation of every person.

In the play, Scout is joined as narrator by Jem and their friend Dill. The youths are played by adult actors to incredible success. Melanie Moore (Scout), Justin Mark (Jem), and Steven Lee Johnson (Dill) perform with a brisk pace, comedy both subtle and grand, and recognizable connection between the three. The expansion of the narrators is the first of Sorkin's changes we see, followed quickly by his moving of Tom's trial to the top of the show. Indeed, we get pieces of the trial interspersed throughout the evening until we catch up to the proceedings midway through the second act.

Sorkin's writing can almost always be connected to some kind of legal, political, and/or governmental characters and events. THE WEST WING, A FEW GOOD MEN, CHARLIE WILSON'S WAR, THE AMERICAN PRESIDENT, THE NEWSROOM, MOLLY'S GAME, and THE TRIAL OF THE CHICAGO SEVEN are just a few examples. It's no surprise that adapting TO KILL A MOCKINGBIRD is a project he'd be eager to pursue; he's in his zone when pairing institutional procedure and high drama. Expanding the events of and featuring the trial is the device that most demonstrates the value of adapting the piece for theatrical presentation.

The expansion and importance of the housekeeper Calpurnia is welcome and effective. Calpurnia challenges Atticus' moral idealism. She believes his faith in people's goodness is misguided and she makes her displeasure known in scenes by Sorkin that Scout, the book's narrator, would not have been privy to. Jacqueline Williams plays Calpurnia with force in a magnificent highlight performance. Standouts aplenty though from the large, masterful cast.

The star of the show is Richard Thomas as Atticus. Last seen at Gammage (to equal success) in THE HUMANS, Thomas is a rock-solid champion of American realism. Keeping Sorkin's wordy (I'd say verbose if it wasn't so good) dialogue believable as an extemporaneous conversation is an acting challenge and Mr. Thomas delivers.

Director Bartlett Sher's staging is appropriately cinematic, an aesthetic evoked primarily by the guitar and pipe organ score by Adam Guettel, as well as the light design by Jennifer Tipton.

This play is a pleasure to watch and it provides an appreciated balance to the otherwise somewhat spectacle-driven Gammage season.

TO KILL A MOCKINGBIRD plays at Gammage Auditorium through December 11th.

To post a comment, you must register and login.