These days, it’s hard to hear that line, and that facile sentiment, without cringing. “But they’re still good people,” Atticus insists, after the children shame them into an undignified retreat. ![]() That would include the lynch mob that shows up in raggedy Klan masks at one point to do Klan things. ![]() “There’s fundamental goodness in all of us,” he says, urging them to be tolerant of others - all others. Kind and compassionate, but somehow rugged as a rock in Daniels’ solid performance, Atticus is determined to pass on to the children his own bedrock belief in the nobility of all human beings. The most solid setting is the porch where Atticus seems to deliver most of his folksy lessons to Scout, her older brother, Jem (Will Pullen, a nice actor playing a nice boy), and their goofy friend, Dill Harris (Gideon Glick, overdoing the goofiness), a character Lee based on her friend Truman Capote. ![]() And leave it to lighting designer Jennifer Tipton to warm everybody up by washing this drab town in tones of golden-brown. (There are doors and windows, but no walls.) Ann Roth’s dowdy costumes capture the weary look of the clothes country people wore in the 1930s. The minimalist set by Miriam Buether is composed of largely wooden set pieces that function as mere suggestions of the little town of Maycomb, Alabama. The designers have done a beautiful job of conjuring that era without smothering the narrative. After all, Lee based her warm-hearted but wide-eyed bildungsroman on her own childhood growing up in the segregated Deep South during the Depression. Watching this show, more faithful than not to its source, you have to wonder what makes the material so incendiary. Nonetheless, the novel is constantly under attack by religious, civic, and parents’ groups demanding that it be removed from school libraries and classroom curriculums.įor the most part, these protests have to do with Lee’s liberal and historically accurate use of “the n-word.” (Although it’s startling to hear the word used so often on a Broadway stage, the producers earn points for refusing to sanitize the script.) But broader issues of race and class also continue to fuel complaints. To be sure, it sold 50 million copies when it was published in 1960, won the most prestigious of literary prizes, inspired an Academy Award-winning film starring Gregory Peck, and is taught in countless school classrooms all over the country. “Mockingbird,” although beloved all over the world, has always been a headache. The rest of the large and very fine cast perform their parts with all their hearts, under Sher’s impeccably fine-tuned direction. Celia Keenan-Bolger, best remembered for “The 25th Annual Putnam County Spelling Bee” but grown up now, is smart, funny, and entirely convincing as Scout, Atticus’s precocious 6-year-old daughter and the narrator of the story. Get a glimpse at the reopening night audience's arrival's, Sorkin's speech, curtain call and the company's post-performance toast in the video below.Against all odds, writer Aaron Sorkin and director Bartlett Sher have succeeded in crafting a stage-worthy adaptation of Harper Lee’s classic American novel “ To Kill a Mockingbird.” The ever-likable Daniels, whose casting was genius, gives a strong and searching performance as Atticus Finch, the small-town Southern lawyer who epitomizes the ideal human qualities of goodness, tolerance and decency. (Photo: Natalie Powers) All rise! The Broadway company of To Kill a Mockingbird takes their reopening night curtain call. (Photo: Jenny Anderson) Celia Keenan-Bolger, who won a 2019 Tony Award for her performance as Scout Finch, takes a bow following her first performance back. (Photo: Natalie Powers) Aaron Sorkin, who adapted To Kill a Mockingbird for the stage, addresses the crowd before the first performance starts. ![]() The audience gathers outside of the Shubert Theatre for To Kill a Mockingbird's reopening night. Go inside the exciting evening with the powerful photos and video below. Sorkin addressed the audience prior to the curtain coming up on the performers, including Jeff Daniels and Celia Keenan-Bolger, who returned to their roles as Atticus and Scout Finch, respectively. Aaron Sorkin's stage adaptation of Harper Lee's To Kill a Mockingbird resumed performances at the Shubert Theatre on October 5, and what an evening it was.
0 Comments
Leave a Reply. |
Details
AuthorWrite something about yourself. No need to be fancy, just an overview. ArchivesCategories |