A Nice Surprise at Mockingbird

If you have a chance to see the touring stage production of To Kill a Mockingbird, by all means, go. Though the run is finished in Atlanta, the show moves on now to other cities.

With a standalone witness box center stage for Atticus to circle while he drives home his case, the courtroom scenes are brilliantly designed and, yes, choreographed. Having the children quietly wander along the outskirts of the set to observe the courtroom action is another beautiful touch, an imaginative way to bring this time-honored story to life.

A uniformly strong cast.

We might have asked for a slightly rumpled Atticus instead of Richard Thomas’ fashion-catalog-fresh version, but there is raw strength beneath the polished gentility. Morehouse College graduate Yaegel T. Welch plays the falsely accused Tom Robinson with a warmth and honesty that instantly win us over.

While Maeve Moynihan’s Scout sounds at times as if she graduated from the Scarlett O’Hara School of Questionable Southern Accents (does anyone from Alabama say “evi-Day-unce?”), her capable and spirited narration ties the show together. The actors who play Jem, Dill, Bob Ewell and Calpurnia are standouts.

Aaron Sorkin’s script is as sleek and well-crafted as we would expect from THE MASTER. The laughs perfectly punctuate the story’s heavy subject. And thankfully, his reverence for Harper Lee’s original novel shines through.

Nevertheless, a more powerful ending, in this viewer’s opinion, would have been a simple reading of the novel’s final paragraphs. You can’t get any better than that.

It pays to read the playbill!

The bonus for us was reading the playbill at intermission and learning that Mary Badham plays nosy neighbor Mrs. Henry Dubose. At age 10, Badham was Scout in the 1962 feature film with Gregory Peck.

According to the playbill, she has spent much of her life promoting the book and film’s message. Now she’s in her 70s and touring with the show.

Go, Mary!

From the way-back scrapbook.

I was lucky early in my career that the newspaper I worked for, the Alabama Journal in Montgomery, didn’t employ a full-time critic. Complimentary tickets were available to anyone on the reporting staff who wanted to review opening night of whatever plays the local community theaters … and there were several … were producing.

I frequently volunteered.

Above is the first review I wrote for the Journal. I started drafting it as soon as I got home from the theater that evening, and I worked on it until the wee hours of the morning. I believe the play was produced at the Montgomery Little Theater in the fall of 1974, when I was 22 … a greenhorn at just about everything, especially being a theater critic.

It’s a tad overwritten but I’m still rather proud of it … these 50 years later.

What’s the latest stage production you enjoyed … or didn’t? I’d love to know what you thought … and why. Feel free to leave a message.

And thanks again for reading.