![]() ![]() Thomas, who seems utterly impervious to aging, renders Atticus with brisk, no-nonsense strokes. The performers tend to deliver their lines to the audience rather than to one another - another distancing element. And a few of the accents are worn like wooden teeth. The acting is broader and less intimate than it was in New York. The settings, enkindled by Jennifer Tipton’s lighting, are sketched against a lyrical, abstract background. Miriam Buether’s scenic design doesn’t strive for cozy realism. The production, which includes original music by Tony winner Adam Guettel (“The Light in the Piazza”), operates on an operatic scale. The final stretch feels overextended as we approach the three-hour mark, but interest never stalls, no matter how many times you’ve relived the plot. “To Kill a Mockingbird” has a lot of story to dramatize, and Sorkin’s adaptation moves with smooth efficiency. At 6½ hours long, it’s worth every minute. The Geffen Playhouse production of ‘The Inheritance’ superbly realizes playwright Matthew López’s vision. ![]() But also occasionally in a heart-stirring manner, as when spooky neighbor Boo Radley (Travis Johns) turns out to be not the maniac Scout and Jem imagine him to be.Įntertainment & Arts Review: Tony-winning ‘The Inheritance’ is better in Los Angeles than on Broadway Sometimes in shocking ways, as when men regularly seen at the market and hardware store appear at night as a lynch mob. One lesson Lee draws is how difficult it is to get inside the skin of another person, something Atticus is always encouraging his children to do. The anti-Black pathology is generational, rooted in history, linked to social insecurity and awash in the ugliest of sexual projections. Welch) of sexual assault out of fear of her father, springs from a resentment too deep to be chalked up to economic conditions alone. The brutality of small men such as Bob Ewell (Joey Collins), whose daughter Mayella (Arianna Gayle Stucki) has accused Tom (Yaegel T. Their confrontation comes to a head when Atticus, defending his neighborly stance toward the racist dregs of Maycomb society, proudly asserts, “I believe in being respectful.” Calpurnia, tired of holding her tongue, replies, “No matter who you disrespect by doing it.” Correct thinking took a back seat to lived experience. ![]() Say what you will about Lee’s narrative choices, she knew the hearts and minds of the characters she wrote about. And Sorkin’s tampering with the book, to bring the tale more into alignment with contemporary sensibilities, undermines some of the novel’s complexities. It was further criticized for feeding “white savior” syndrome and for decentering the true victims of racist violence, Black Americans. “To Kill a Mockingbird” was banned in certain schools for its use of racial epithets and for a plot hinging on a rape trial. A pandemic, the toxic fallout of Donald Trump’s presidency and a reckoning on race that was ignited by the murder of George Floyd have heightened awareness of the disparities and injustices built into the American story. The Broadway touring production, retaining the elegant fluidity of Bartlett Sher’s staging, arrives at the Hollywood Pantages at a different cultural moment than when this version of “To Kill a Mockingbird” first opened in New York in 2018. Scout (Melanie Moore) and Jem (Justin Mark) still receive a crash course in race relations, but now Atticus (Thomas) too undergoes a moral reeducation as his faith in the decency of his neighbors is shattered. Portrayed as a ruminative hero in Gregory Peck’s Oscar-winning performance in the 1962 film, the character of Atticus is at the heart of Sorkin’s reworking of the story. Asked to defend a poor Black man accused of rape by a white woman and her abusive father, Atticus reluctantly takes the case, aware that his family will be subjected to the inevitable communal backlash but confident that he can appeal to the basic goodness and sense of fair play of the jury. The book, published in 1960, tells the story of attorney Atticus Finch, a widower raising two young children, Scout and Jem, in Maycomb, Ala., during the Great Depression. The hit Broadway adaptation by Aaron Sorkin, now on tour at the Hollywood Pantages Theatre in a production starring Richard Thomas, has followed suit. ![]() Harper Lee’s “To Kill a Mockingbird,” once a staple of junior high reading lists, has become a lightning rod for controversy. ![]()
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