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Life & Arts

Literary classic visits Alley Theatre

Though production features strong acting, characters, it's the moving story that hits home with audiences 

by CAITLIN CUPPERNULL 
The Daily Cougar 

The Alley Theatre's production of Harper Lee's To Kill a Mockingbird leaves audience members with a strange mix of emotions. 

For one, there's the ardor felt toward the characters and the actors who so skillfully bring them to life. There's also the sickening certainty that the injustice acted out on stage in the fictional town of Maycomb, Ala., is just a glimpse of what happened far too frequently in real towns (and in many cases still happens), and to far more torturous and severe degrees. 

With the help of a phenomenal cast, director and stage production, Christopher Sergel's adaptation of the classic novel doesn't simply act out scenes from the book; it takes all of the atrocities as well as the heartwarming revelations found in its pages and puts them right in front of you, forcing you to be moved in a number of ways by the events taking place on stage. 

Set in 1935, the play begins with Jean-Louise Finch (Andrea Maulella) recalling a childhood summer in sleepy Maycomb. 

The young Jean-Louise, or "Scout," and her brother Jem's (Tommy Waas) main concern is entertaining their new friend Dill (Wesley Whitson) with stories of the scary town loner who's kept locked in his house. When their father, Atticus (John Feltch), a lawyer, must defend Tom Robinson (David Rainey), a black man charged with raping a white woman, the children's focus moves from the made-up horrors of Boo Radley to the true horrors of racial inequality and prejudice in small-town Alabama.

Maulella seamlessly shifts from being the narrating voice of the story to being an omniscient and silent observer as the play follows her younger self, Scout (Jennifer Laporte), through a pivotal point in her adolescence.

Laporte, Waas and Whitson run through the minimal set -- from the Finch's porch, in front of the foreboding Radley house and under the shade of a large oak tree -- and one can almost feel the Alabama heat as they scramble across the stage and dare each other to touch the Radley house. Although there are few actual scene and prop changes, the set is brought to life through small details, such as filtering light through the leaves of the tree, which casts a familiar summer shadow. 

The young actors (ages 11, 12 and 14) rival the adults with their skill and poise and are just as amusing when they get themselves into trouble by trying to lure Radley outside as they are heartbreaking when they pressure Atticus to explain the events surrounding Robinson's arrest and trial. 

In his portrayal of Atticus, Feltch convincingly teaches Scout and Jem some of life's most important (and often missed) lessons with the loving tone a father would have toward his children. It is not in this role of father that his acting is at its best, though, but in the role of lawyer. 

When Feltch performs Atticus' closing argument at Robinson's trial, the audience members feel as though they are the jury he is demanding justice of, and when the court finds the innocent Robinson guilty, it's impossible to accept the verdict -- even if you've read the book countless times. 

In one of the most tumultuous and painful scenes, the courtroom is filled not only with Feltch's superb acting, but that of Jeffrey Bean, playing the despicable father of the rape victim, and Elizabeth Bunch, who plays the equally despicable (although somewhat more forgivable) and sequestered Mayella Violet Ewell. 

The court scene is so powerful that when the room clears after the trial and Rev. Sykes (Clarence Whitmore) tells Scout to stand because her father is passing, audience members may fight the urge to stand themselves.

But it is not the acting or set design that makes the play exceptional. It is the same thing that made the 1962 film so renowned and earned the novel a Pulitzer Prize: the poignant story. 

The risk for failure was high with this play, as it is for anything that must live up to lofty pre-set standards, but it does the acclaimed book justice, adding some tangibility and breath to Lee's unforgettable work. 

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