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To Kill A Mockingbird
- Tour and Scottish Premiere
Writer of the original Book - Harper Lee
Adapter - Christopher Sergel
Director - Tim Baker
Designer - Mark Bailey
Lighting Designer - Simon Corder
Music Director - Dyfan Jones
Company - Clwyd Theatr Cymru - Cast see end
of review
Venue Seen - Theatre Royal Glasgow 0141 332 9000
282 Hope Street near RSAMD
Dates & Times - 15 - 20 Oct at 7:15pm Mats on Thurs
and Sat at 2:30pm
Reviewer - Nick Whyte
Great singing and well played narrator
With a yarn like To Kill A Mockingbird you can't really do much wrong.
It tugs at the heart strings, casts top class lines at our aspirations
to defend honour against prejudice, and reminds us why we had children,
or why we want them.
For those whose teens were somehow untouched by a reading of the original
story, it concerns a white Alabama lawyer defending a black man against
a charge of rape, in 1935. Much of the novel is told from the perspective
of his youngest child, Scout, a smart girl who has inherited her father's
sense of justice a little more thoroughly than her older brother, Jem.
Unfortunately, she's still at a stage when anyone transgressing the bounds
of her sense of morality, 'gets beat up on' by her.
Christopher Sergel wrote the play in 1970, ten years after the novel was
written, and it is fitting that it is narrated by this same character.
She is played brilliantly by Catrin Rhys, and the cast in general
is good, though it is a little ironic that on the programme cover, there
is a snapshot of the cast in a line, behind which all that can be seen
of Scout is her cap.
The second half of the play, in which most of the court-room scene is
played out, is handled well, and the audience is carried on an ever-growing
wave of admiration for Atticus, the lawyer. We are all convinced good
and early of the innocence of the accused, Tom Robinson, and all slavering
at the muzzle over the true culprit, the victim's father. There is also
some very fine singing, part-negro spiritual, part-gospel, with some subtle
harmonies. Is it politically incorrect to say, 'well, what do you expect,
they are Welsh'?
Altogether this profession production holds up, though I do question some
of the ommissions as regards character detail seemily made by the playwright
and not remedied in the production. The full glory of Atticus lies in
his constant appraisal of a moral situation, and of his daughter's demanding
and complicated questions. When reading the novel, it is the spontanaeity
of his thought, and not simply his morality which draws you in.
The direction does little to resolve this problem - it's not inventive
enough to prevent the play becoming a bit straight forward in its message.
The spectre of Boo Radley, the conspicuous next-door neighbour who silently
and enigmatically conjours his way into the children's imaginations, is
given much of the necessary ambience by the lighting and sound design
which accompanies scenes outside his house. But the stage-craft of his
ultimate and important appearance falls very short.
But like I say, how can you go very far wrong. It's an enjoyable evening,
and is certainly worth going to, if only to hear some great singing and
to see Catrin Rhys deliver an endearing and thoroughly absorbing
performance, in the all-important role of narrator.
© Nick Whyte 15 October 2002. - Published on EdinburghGuide.com
Review
of Theatre Clwyd's Touring Production of Rosencrantz and Gildenstern are
Dead earlier in 2002
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