NORFOLK — Most people flocking to Chrysler Hall to see Aaron Sorkin’s stage adaptation of “To Kill a Mockingbird,” are rightfully excited to see Richard Thomas, who earned his wings as TV’s John-Boy Walton, play Atticus Finch.
“The Waltons” offered Thomas practice on Southern Romantic Regionalism not that far removed from that permeating Maycomb County, Alabama, Harper Lee’s fictional setting in her mostly beloved (it’s often banned) novel, “To Kill a Mockingbird” 1960. Mind you the Waltons were sawmill operators and farmers, not lawyers. But John-Boy was moving up via education and both families — Waltons and Finches — shared a nascent concern for racial justice.
In addition to catching some Waltons’ vibe, some audience members are eager to see Mary Badham, who was the original Scout in the famous 1962 film adaptation that won Gregory Peck the Academy Award for his Atticus. In this touring edition Badham soars and scores as a decades-older mean racist biddy named Mrs. Henry Dubose. Another bird note: it’s also worth the trip to see an obviously adult actor really named Scout (Scout Backus) execute a role originally written as the 6-year-old tomboy, Scout Finch.
As students of the novel learn (as early as 8th grade), it’s a first-person narrative that moves briefly to Scout Finch as an adult but mostly dwells within her summer of 1934 when her father takes on the court case of a young, hard-working Black family-man, Tom Robinson (done here by the excellent Yaegel T. Welch) accused of rape by a young white woman Mayella Ewell (Mariah Lee) egged on by her execrable father Bob Ewell (Ted Koch), also very good but a shade too proper in his appearance. (Costuming and stage design are not the strong points of this touring production.) Acting, however, is, thanks to the unusually high number of Broadway participants (eight of the lead characters) brought into this national tour.
First-person narration, as most English teachers indicate, is notoriously tricky to imitate onstage. Sorkin must have decided, ‘What the heck!,’ and instead of one first-person perspective goes for three, and even four. This means having Scout, Jem (excellent adult actor Justin Mark) and their new friend Dill Harris (Steven Lee Johnson, also very good, though clearly a grown man imitating a boy) directly address the audience to convey “thoughts.” Especially as the play draws towards its conclusion, Atticus (Thomas) joins them, turning directly to the audience to voice his most anguished realizations about human nature (i.e., it is sometimes as rotten as vulture bait). His education in this matter has been conducted by the few other decent whites in town, e.g., Sheriff Heck Tate (Travis Johns) and Judge Taylor (Jeff Still), both delivering solid performances, but especially by his longtime family servant Calpurnia (Jacqueline Williams, with comic timing as sharp as a talon).
One of Sorkin’s lines declares the relationship between Atticus and Calpurnia to be more like that of a brother and sister. Nonsense. In the world of Maycomb, Alabama, in 1934, not even the kindest white man’s relationship with even the kindest and best Black employee can properly be considered fraternal or sororal.
And that brings us to the real problem of the original novel which no adaptation in any medium has been able to lick: white liberalism, or, more strongly put, white saviorism. Even though Sorkin’s adaptation tries to alter Atticus’ status as a “white savior,” it does not. Instead of truly seeing Black characters as adult, self-determining human beings, white savior characters such as Atticus treat them (and women of all races) paternalistically. Great White Father Knows Best. That formulation is too pat, and itself tainted with (my own) self-righteousness, but that’s the point. Lee’s novel is a product of its time and place, and no amount of adaptation into any medium (there’s even a graphic novel version) can change its author’s white perspective on her history.
In his efforts to modernize and sanitize the plot, Sorkin focuses more on the three children and Atticus and a bit more on Calpurnia, but without much overall gain. The Boo Radley part of the plot has been cut to a bare minimum. Since that curtails Lee’s rendering of mental illness, it seems a net loss. Dill’s role has been reconceived to make him a struggling child, abandoned by feckless parents. The original Dill, however, was based on Truman Capote, Lee’s famous childhood friend and neighbor, who was flamboyantly gay, even in childhood. Some of this effeminacy comes across in John Megna’s performance for the 1962 film adaptation; virtually all of it has been scrubbed away here, for reasons unclear.
Sorkin’s Atticus, despite all efforts to “man” him up (a stage fight with Bob Ewell takes the place of shooting the rabid dog — admittedly something tricky to execute onstage), remains overly virtuous beyond all reason. Atticus’ moving direct address to the audience near the end, “We have to heal this wound [the South’s pernicious racism] or we will never stop bleeding,” helps, but doesn’t solve the play’s essential source-based dilemma. One can jumble up the plot pieces of Lee’s text, throwing them down in a different order, but the game’s the same.
As Sorkin’s version of Atticus says, by way of uplift towards the play’s ending, “Joy cometh in the morning.” He and his children are still alive, despite the evil intentions of Bob Ewell and his KKK ilk.
But hear Calpurnia’s wry reaction: “Morning takin’ its own sweet time.”
Page Laws is dean emerita of the Nusbaum Honors College at Norfolk State University. prlaws@aya.yale.edu
IF YOU GO
When: 7:30 p.m. tonight; 8 p.m., Friday; 2 and 8 p.m., Saturday;1 and 6:30 p.m., Sunday
Where: Chrysler Hall, 215 St. Paul’s Blvd., Norfolk
Tickets: Start at $37.50
Details: sevenvenues.com, ticketmaster.com
