So why review this, and indeed why go at all given that I seem to be one of the few who does not "love" the original novel (more of that anon)? Well, the latter is largely because I love Sorkin's writing, and the former because I need to work out for myself what I think. So this is largely for myself and others who have already seen it and it will contain spoilers, but I will try to minimise, isolate and identify them so so can skip over them if you want.
But first, a few notes about the set and staging, which on the one hand was quite spare, but actually required a lot of lifts, flying and stage-handling to deliver. I'm led to believe from the programme thatvthe original stage in the US was somewhat bigger which could explain why some of the scenes looked cramped (eg the positioning of the witness box in the court scene, and the unnecessary "business" around exiting through a door in scene towards the end.) Personally I didn't think that any of the staging added greatly to the show, even where the movement of flats in the course of the action was supposed to add urgency. All it actually added was noise making some of the dialogue much harder to hear as scenes changed (even more difficult for at least one of our party, seated at the back of the dress circle, who has a hearing aid.) They also had a male black guitarist and female (hatted) harmonium player either side of the stage, front of curtain. But, a bit like the over-complex, yet pared down set, they didn't really make the most of them, making you wonder "Why bother?"
But again, why did I bother going to see it when I hadn't really enjoyed the book. Actually I only got round to reading the book or seeing the film little under 10 years ago... But EVERYONE told me I had to read it, especially after I read "The Help" and seen the film of it the previous year... Even my older son, who isn't a reader, said I must read it as he really enjoyed it. But whilst I could admire the quality of the writing and the depth of personality in the key characters, I found the narrative very uneven, and was slightly unsettled by what seemed to me to be an underlying message that racism only becomes ugly in the lower classes (an attitude to sectarianism all too prevalent in my own society of Northern Ireland). There was implicit racism right the way through the society as seen through the wise eyes of Scout... but at no point is any of it really challenged, except by the (naive?) idea that the key to equality is being widely read, having the sort of education that schools don't provide and looking at people through the eyes of an accepting white girl... a trope later repeated in books like "The Help" and "The Secret Life of Bees" (both of which I probably enjoyed more than "Mockingbird".)
The previous paragraph is largely lifted straight from my "Goodreads" review of the time, as I didn't want to offer a revisionist take on the book in the light of the 10 subsequent years, which has seen the emergence of the Black Lives Matter campaign, Trumpism and the release of "Go Set a Watchman", the "follow up" to/"early draft" of "Mockingbird" in 2015, a year before Harper Lee's death. This together with an increasing unease about "white Saviour syndrome" has raised significant questions about the original book, its characters, positions and values.
Two of our party actually queried the whole point of staging a play based on the original book, given that our perceptions have moved on. But I don't think they have moved on as much as we would like to think. And for me, this production, which is interesting/intriguing rather than particularly inspiring, speaks powerfully into that. In this treatment the story is not purely through the eyes of Scout, but all the young protagonists (who might have been younger), though it is Scout who lands it. Sorkin also enhances the role of Calpurnia, the Finch's housekeeper, who, first through what she does not say (in what Atticus identifies as "passive aggression"), and later in a critical outburst after the trial, in place of the uncomfortable gratitude of the attending negroes in the book. Could she and Scout have offered contrasting perspectives on the story, offering a more three dimensional vision? Some of our party thought so, but I'm not sure.
SPOILER: There were other elements lost from the book. The shooting of the rabid dog, which removed a key pivot point in Jem and Scout's perspective on their father. The mounting tension about who was placing items in the knot-hole in the living oak, and why... indeed whilst the branches of the tree made an appearance in the set at points, echoing the iconic cover of some editions of the book, it really wasn't alluded to. The minimising of this storyline consequently reduced Boo Radley to a poorly prepared for non-divine "deus ex-machina." There may be other bits of the book that were also omitted, but having only read it once twn years ago I couldn't be sure which, but I am sure devotees will produce a more fulsome list and will have theirvown opinions as to the importance of each. Of course you cannot include everything from a book in a 150 minute play, particularly when you are adding other stuff in. Whether the right bits were excised is certainly debatable (by people who know the book better than me.)
But without there being any danger of this being described as a "woke" reading of the original story, Sorkin certainly has offered a reading that takes into account the 60 years since the book became the must-read for every white civil rights supporter, and especially the last decade. To some of those who have grown up loving this book, I suspect that they may feel that Sorkin has committed the sin of shooting their beloved Mockingbird. Yes he gives Finch one of his trademark court scene speeches. But it is ultimately pointless. In this version Scout isn't so clear sighted and Atticus is not such a moral pathfinder. As such the story is much more ambivalent and there is less certainty that joy will (in the words of what seems to be Sorkin's favourite Psalm) "cometh in the morning" after this night of weeping. But instead of inviting us to take a knee, Sorkin closes by putting the repeated words of the court bailiff into the mouth of Scout, calling us to "All stand."
Shalom
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