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Strong London Transfer of Sorkin’s To Kill A Mockingbird

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It’s Theatre Thursday! Opening night of this production is tonight! I saw it a few weeks ago so here we are! Have fun tonight to everyone who didn’t get into fights with people that rhyme with Belfont Crackintosh and get blacklisted from press lists!

What a treat for London! Aaron Sorkin’s very-Aaron-Sorkin adaptation of the classic Harper Lee novel To Kill A Mockingbird has successfully made the jump from Broadway to add some heavy heavy drama, depth, and intelligence to current West End offerings. With the familiar portrayal of the novel’s events, some great performances, and subtle improvements on the source material, this production is a must. And I’m not just saying that because I got to stand next to my fave male theatre director OF ALL TIME, Bartlett Sher, for a few minutes as he tweaked his work. (“T-W-E-A-K tweaking. It sounds like…he’s…married. Married 3 kids.”)

As an American, my DNA comprises the book To Kill A Mockingbird like it does peanut butter and apple pie (not together ew gross! wait, actually… (I truly just made the two faces of that girl in the gif, you know the one)). I assumed that British folk did not have to read the book in their version of middle school as commonly as we did (every single American schoolchild reads it) and according to some of my British friends that is correct, since they didn’t have to. The draw, then, to this show and the cultural importance of it might not be as compelling as it was in NYC. But hopefully it still makes its mark.

TKAM tells the story, as you know (unless you’re a British schoolchild), of nice-man lawyer Atticus Finch, his children Scout (tough girl!) and Jem (boy of middling toughness!), their new friend Dill (based on Truman Capote!), and the Alabama town they live in and all its eek-face-making goings-on. Atticus is tasked to represent a black man accused of raping a young white girl, Atticus being one of the few non-super-racist whites of the town and thus the accused’s only chance at justice. Even though everyone and their dog knows the man, Tom Robinson, is innocent, the politics of the town and time mean that getting justice for the man will be a longshot.

The courtroom drama scenes are so well done. So much time is devoted to Mayella’s and Bob Ewell’s testimony and you want to scream the whole time but it is mfing gripping drama. I haven’t been that nervous and breathless watching cross examinations since I was an intern in a real courtroom for a trial of this very nature, although the attorneys there could have really used some Sorkin writing on their side (and that IRL defense attorney was actually more offensive, racist, and bigoted than the prosecution here! hooray America!).

Rafe Spall’s Atticus carries the show fine, and is strong in the scenes with the children. He’s good in the court scenes too, although his surprisingly loud screaming at the end felt like a shocking misfire for a character always shown as level-headed. Yes, it’s to show he’s losing his famous patience with this miscarriage of justice, but even so, a little too much to be believable. Scout, our narrator, is playedth by Gwyneth Keyworth, who has some amazing moments (“go right for the eyes!” being literally the hardest I’ve laughed in the theatre in years) but needs to work on her uneven accent. My fave performance of the whole shibang comes from David Moorst as a spindly and sprightly Dill, who is gottam HILARIOUS 70% of the time and completely heartbreaking 40% of the time (that’s right) with no lag time. I could cry again thinking of him. HE’S NOT REAL, I have to keep telling myself otherwise it’s unbearable. (Moorst played Puck in that beyond perfection production of A Midsummer Night’s Dream at the Bridge so I guess he joins my list of favorite UK actors, cool cool cool.)

What I really loved about this production was how Atticus, long heralded in American culture as the faultless hero white man who helped solve racism, was called out for trying to be nice to everyone, even to bad racist people. His long-time black maid, Calpurnia (Pamela Nomvete), does the calling out over time and then all at once, in a satisfying and believable way, though the bigness of that moment’s portrayal feels a bit forced Atticus was rightly revealed as being neutral towards offenders, like a modern person still trying to be friends with Republicans who vote others’ rights away, and finally having that stated as unequivocally wrong-headed. This is what I meant as some of the “subtle improvements on the source material”, although it has been so long since I read the book that maybe it’s in there. But I very much appreciated Sorkin’s making it clear that trying to be nice to everyone means you are nice to people who aren’t nice to some, who are evil in fact, who don’t deserve it. Being Switzerland to everyone means you’re also Switzerland to the Jews. (Look it up!)

Despite the length of the show (see infra), it moved well (like so many musical theatre actors on their resumes). Well, for the most part — hopefully by tonight the final 20 minutes will have been tightened, because it was like a belt on its biggest beltloop when it needed to be on maybe its second-to-smallest. The whole part with the sheriff and the judge and Atticus being CONVINCED for no good reason that his skinny lil son killed a man?? (Brick killed a guy!) felt like I was being draggggeduh physically through molasses. It was not believable that Atticus wouldn’t get the picture for that f-ing long. I kept wanting to shout “he ran into my knife! he ran into my knife ten times!” Would’ve livened that scene up (although omg when Boo appears, my heart!! it’s so good!). BUT ANYWAY. TKAM is an always timely reminder that the justice system does not work for everyone, and that the same general issue — vital decisions made without the burden of facts — have opposite results for different people (i.e., it destroyed Tom’s life, and it saved Boo’s). It’s an important-feeling, high-quality production that benefits from Sorkin at his West Wing best and not at his Molly’s Game worst (it was just on TV, it is all voiceover narration? so annoying. Congrats to Chasty though, love her).

INFORMATION

My performance began at 19:35, Act I ended at 20:56 (WOOF that’s a lot to ask of my bladder, I am aware that’s not normal don’t worry), and the show ended at about 22:30. long! but great! It might have been (hopefully) tightened up by tonight but I can’t say because of the aforementioned yet-another shit list I’m on for being honest/not taking other people’s shit.

AUDIENCE

Masks on about 10% of people, 80% of unmasked coughing like it was their gottam job. COOOOOL.

TIP

If you sit in the stalls house left, there’s a little hidden ladies toilet that you can run to and beat the queue, what a treat.

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