How do you solve a problem like Atticus Finch?
by Sarah Coyle
Since the 2015 publication of Harper Lee’s second novel, Go Set a Watchman, which reveals Atticus Finch to be a racist, one struggles to hold our lead character with the same regard with which he was once viewed. Even Atticus’s original incarnation as a quietly dignified white saviour defending an innocent black man in a courtroom of racist jurors feels anachronistic in the BLM era. So in any new telling of our tale, one is faced with the question– how do you solve a problem like Atticus Finch?
Thankfully Aaron Sorkin, of West Wing fame, finds an effective way to create a new, self-assertive version of our well-known tale. By having our original narrator, Scout, share narrating duties with her older, more critical brother Jem, and their out-of-town friend Dill, Sorkin allows the lawyer’s moral inconsistencies to be drawn out without undermining his inherent goodness.
The story remains roughly intact: Atticus Finch, a small-town lawyer and father to Scout and Jem, defends Tom Robinson, an innocent black man who has been accused of rape by a white woman who is being sexually abused by her father. Just as in the book, Atticus views human beings as inherently deserving of respect regardless of their actions. What does change, however, is that here the children decide for themselves what and who is right, and challenge him on it. Sorkin gives a louder voice to the black housekeeper Calpurnia, played movingly by Pamela Nomvete, and Tom Robinson himself –a dignified Jude Owusu. This allows Atticus’s even-handedness to be drawn out as a relative luxury afforded by his privilege. Coyle plays Atticus as an honest, self-deprecating, affectionate man, but a flawed one with flashes of temper and a certain satisfaction in his own intelligence and moral rectitude. Coyle’s Atticus is constantly grappling with himself to do the right thing; he is not the paragon of saintly virtue he appears in the book. But this humanity makes him all the more fundamentally decent, and the extraordinarily brave things he does do – notably facing down an entire lynch mob on his own – all the more remarkable.
Scout, Jem and Dill are all played by adults – a high-risk venture which pays off remarkably well. Scout, the feisty, wide-eyed tomboy is glowingly played by Gwyneth Keyworth; Harry Redding makes an astute professional debut as troubled, self-possessed Jem, while David Moorst skillfully relieves tension as Dill, their lovable marionette puppet-like friend. The trio’s interactions are often comedic –they have some brilliant one-liners– but are also littered with pathos as the children’s collective loss of innocence is movingly played out.
The drama of the courtroom is when this production comes fully alive. The testimonies of both walking thyroid Bob Ewell and his snake-like daughter Mayella (Patrick O’Kane and Poppy Lee Friar respectively) are filled with tension, humiliation, fury and betrayal. There are modern-day resonances of Trump’s rust-belt left-behinds in their characterisations, which feel utterly uncontrived; both father and daughter sneer at Atticus’s intellectual elitism and seem to grieve their supposed loss of a clear societal purpose.
The drama feels less taut post-trial, where the events end up feeling like a hastily added coda. Despite this, the near three hours fly by. Every characterisation is beautifully rendered amid Miriam Buether’s intricate cut-out set, which slots in and out of the derelict warehouse space where the majority of our narration takes place. Transitions between the austere courtroom and the peachy, sunset-drenched porch of the family home are smooth, and Jennifer Tipton’s lighting adapts to mood and time of day perfectly. The production is a restless, probing, engaging piece of theatre that celebrates and scrutinises Harper Lee’s masterpiece with real poignancy. A must-see for all.
