THE TRANSATLANTIC MAGAZINE
THE TRANSATLANTIC MAGAZINE
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Aaron Sorkin's play based on Harper Lee's Pulitzer Prize winning classic novel arrives from Broadway to much fanfare. The book, which provides a beguiling child's-eye view of a father's stand against racial injustice in the deep South of the mid-1930s, has become totemic. A set text in every sense of the word. The character of Atticus Finch (Rafe Spall) was the definition of the 'white saviour', who defended, in a hugely partisan Alabama courtroom, a tragically wronged Black man, Tom Robinson (Jude Owusu), falsely accused of raping a poor white woman.
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Sorkin's own writings (A Few Good Men, The West Wing, The Social Network) are modern day classics and have reveled in chewy ethical dilemmas which explore the moral inconsistencies of 'good people', so he's a good match with this material. Acclaimed director Bartlett Sher gives it a confident big-hearted production, but he lends it an epic quality which it probably too much for what is, at heart, a courtroom drama. In fact, it was one of the templates for that TV staple.
The production here feels curiously old fashioned, like those elephantine Broadway productions in those huge theatres where you're invited to feel the money. The blocking is odd with key characters backgrounded and Miriam Beuther's clumpy set, framed within a decayed warehouse, encumbers rather than liberates this large and often underutilised cast. Odd lighting choices spotlight key moments with a deadening literalness and at nearly 3 hours the piece does have its longueurs. Some well-chosen live music (guitar and harmonium) does redeem it however and supplies an evocative and subtle underscore.
Rafe Spall does a brilliant job in humanising this saint of a man, lending him a cockiness which tempers all that virtue. Jim Norton is wonderfully fiery as a Judge with a tendency to boil over in his own court, while Patrick O'Kane has nowhere to go but over the top as Ewell, the Klan member and father of the victim. His white working class sneering at Atticus' intellectual elitism brings his character right up to date for our Trumpian times.
The book deftly interwove the courtroom drama with the narration of Scout (Gwyneth Keyworth), Atticus' tomboy daughter, and here that framing function is extended to include her brother Jem (Harry Redding) and the nascent gay character Dill (David Moorst). Daringly they're all played by adults, but they deftly supply playful comic relief, dipping in and out of the action.
Sorkin's re-versioning (and there have been legal battles with the Lee estate) gives more prominence to the Black characters, which is a valid approach, but it does rather unbalance the piece. The convenient hypocrisies of the white characters are obvious and really don't need underlining. Atticus calls them 'good people' yet they convict a plainly innocent man. Here, though, the family's devoted housekeeper, Calpurnia (Pamela Nomvete), who is rightfully furious at being expected to be grateful to Atticus, is given an angry stridency which feels misplaced for this character, even if it does soothe the sensibilities of today's audiences.
There's a tightrope to be walked here in framing this much loved classic for the era of Black Lives Matter and I'm not sure this hasn't fallen off it.
