Aaron Sorkin's stately adaptation of Harper Lee's American classic makes a welcome return to the West End, offering balm to the soul for liberal-minded theatregoers. The production, directed by Bartlett Sher, was first seen in London in 2022 with Rafe Spall and later Matthew Modine in the lead. Now, with Richard Coyle as Atticus Finch, the show is a little ponderous but remains a supremely well put-together piece of theatre.
Storytelling and Design
Lee's novel, published in 1960 amid the civil rights movement, is narrated by Atticus's tomboy daughter Scout, who is six years old at the start. Sher's production splits the storytelling between Scout (Anna Munden), her older brother Jem (Gabriel Scott), and their garrulous new friend Dill (Dylan Malyn). They address the audience directly from what appears, in Miriam Buether's design, to be a shabby warehouse or grain store. Inside, the rest of the large cast assemble the scenery of the courtroom, the jail, and the Finches' home to the folksy strains of a barrel-organ. This design is an eloquent visual expression of how a small community pulls together, for good or ill. The gentle, despairing farmer whose land has been entailed after the Depression and who can only pay Atticus in firewood and sacks of nuts is also the Klansman carrying a rope. Monsters don't come from outside: they are 'our friends and neighbours'.
Performances
Coyle brings a beady, shrewd alertness and a flair for wry amusement to Atticus. Though not a large man, he projects fortitude with his square-shouldered, hands-in-pockets stance, his pale suit immaculate amid a sea of patched and stained workwear. The child-acting of the three narrators is perhaps a little over-busy, but the earnestness of early life is well captured, along with Lee's elegantly spooling southern sentences. Nasty old Mrs Dubose is 'the meanest woman ever accidentally created by God', according to Scout. A wistfully reflective Jem says: 'If I could take back one minute of my life it'd be the one where I accused my father of bein' a coward.' Malyn contributes a nice comic turn as the gangly Dill, barely able to contain his thoughts and body language.
Oscar Pearce delivers an energetically loathsome, N-word spraying performance as Bob Ewell, whose daughter Mayella has brought her accusation against kindly local cotton-picker Tom Robinson to cover up different transgressions. As Tom, Aaron Shosanya has a quiet dignity and the sad, level gaze of a man who knows innocence won't save him. There are pleasing supporting performances from Andrea Davy as Atticus's housekeeper Calpurnia, David Kennedy as the local farmer Link Deas, and Stephen Boxer as the wearily sagacious Judge Taylor.
Relevance and Impact
'All rise,' intones Scout at the end of each act. It's a symbolic summons to get to our feet, a notification that attention must be paid to injustice and those who fight against it. The production feels particularly relevant now, when wounds dating back to the Civil War are being reopened in America, and the Overton Window of what is politically and socially permissible has drastically shifted. Sher's production dawdles towards the end, but it would take a hard heart not to be moved by the revelation of Dill's home situation, so different from life with the idealised Atticus, and by the closing rendition of the hymn 'Joy Cometh in the Morning' by the entire cast of 24. All rise, indeed.
The production runs until September 12 at Wyndham's Theatre.
