‘To Kill a Mockingbird’ is a stage tale of yesterday, today
Broadway In Chicago bills the national Broadway tour of “To Kill a Mockingbird” as “the history-making production,” which in my mind, are words which have always described this powerful story by Harper Lee throughout the decades, whether told from the page or the stage.
Now playing a limited Chicago run at the James M. Nederlander Theatre, 24 West Randolph St, through Sunday, May 29, this latest adaption is courtesy of Academy Award winner Aaron Sorkin’s pen and the added perspective guiding this version of the play, as directed by Tony Award winner Bartlett Sher and based on Harper Lee’s classic novel.
On Broadway, the lead role of father Atticus Finch was originally played by actor Jeff Daniels pre-pandemic, and then post-pandemic shutdown, by Greg Kinnear, the latter whose hometown roots are Logansport, Ind.
For this national tour, Richard Thomas, of “The Waltons” early television fame, is in fine form as lawyer Atticus, with Sorkin’s slant to the tale putting a greater cross-examination on the Atticus character and his interpretation of the people and events unfolding around him. The representatives for the Estate of Harper Lee (she died in 2016 just two months shy of her
90th birthday) wrangled with Sorkin about his interpretation of the play and characters as “deviating too far from the 1960 novel,” resulting in a legal dispute between both parties.
Prior to Sorkin’s adaptation, the previous stage treatment was approved for the play version, which began reaching audiences in 1970. I last saw a theatrical production for a Chicagoland outdoor summer run in 2015, and prior to that, Steppenwolf ’s upstairs theatre run, which I saw with my parents on Halloween 2010. And like so many others, my first encounter with Lee’s characters was in my required high school reading days, in my case, Mrs. Walker’s senior literature class in 1988.
For this national tour, which is being produced by Barry Diller, adult actress Melanie Moore is the young narrator Scout Finch, a great performance, as she tries to understand her father’s logic and his explanation for his approach to the nefarious actions of the people in their community. Chicago actress great Jacqueline Williams is the family’s housekeeper Calpurnia, given an expanded character approach, much of which happens during her exchanges in Act 2 during the nearly three-hour, one intermission play.
Justin Mark, also an adult actor, is Scout’s brother Jem Finch, and Steven Lee Johnson, another adult actor, is neighbor boy Dill Harris (who Lee based on her childhood friendship with Truman Capote). Yaegel T. Welch is Tom Robinson, the man defended by Atticus, when accused of rape, as conveyed in powerful courtroom scenes by finger-pointing Joey Collins as Bob Ewell and Arianna Gayle Stucki as wincing Mayella Ewell, the perceived victim. Travis Johns is the enigmatic neighbor Boo Radley, who is a mystery in the imaginations of young minds.
The story follows the complicated journey of Jem and Scout as they witness their father’s fate when appointed to defend Tom, a black man accused of assaulting a white woman in 1934 Alabama.
The 1962 movie version starring Gregory Peck as Atticus, arrived in theaters the year after the book won the Pulitzer Prize in 1961. And as a fascinating film nod, in this national tour, Mary Badham, who was Oscar-nominated for the role of “Scout” at age 10 for appearing opposite Peck in the feature film, is cast as sour neighbor Mrs. Dubose. And wow, is she convincing.
De Ryder is among a number of other readers who reached out, wanting to hear my review of the new adaptation. From a descriptive analysis, the previous stage versions included child actors in the child roles and an adult actress as a “grown-up” Scout serving as the narrator as she reflects on the events of the story. Sorkin’s character structure eliminates the need for the “adult Scout” role since it is capably handled by the adult actress playing the young Scout, something she does very well. There are also a few characters included in the original version of play, who are now eliminated, such as “cake-baking neighbor” Maude Atkinson and reclusive neighbor Boo Radley’s brother Nathan.
“To Kill a Mockingbird” now holds the record as the highest-grossing American play in Broadway history, since it began performances on Nov. 1, 2018, at the Shubert Theatre and played to soldout houses until Broadway shutdown in March 2020. On Feb. 26, 2020, “To Kill a Mockingbird” became the first-ever Broadway play to perform at New York’s Madison Square Garden, in front of approximately 18,000 New York City public school students, also marking the largest attendance at a single performance of a play ever in world theater. The production resumed full performances on Oct. 5, 2021 and concluded its run at the Shubert Theatre on Jan.
16, 2022.
As with every other time I’ve seen this play, it leaves you changed in mind and spirit to see the world around you, past and present, differently, through the eyes of Lee, Sorkin and others, leading to great discussion and discovery.
Tickets range from $35-$149 at www.broadwayinchicago.com or www.tokillamockingbirdbroadway.com or 800-7752000.