Review: TO KILL A MOCKINGBIRD at Academy Of Music
First National Tour in Philadelphia July 14 - July 24, 2022
Not since Kander and Ebb's musical The Scottsboro Boys have I been so moved, shocked, and touched by a theatrical production of this magnitude. To Kill a Mockingbird is a look back at 1934 Alabama, and a man of color named Tom Robinson, who is on trial for a crime he did not commit. He faces a jury, made up of all-white peers, and is frightened by the possibility of receiving death by the electric chair if he is convicted. The Kimmel Cultural Campus has a masterful work currently playing at the Academy of Music in Philadelphia, before heading out on the rest of its first national tour. Academy Award winner Aaron Sorkin's adaptation of Harper Lee's to Kill a Mockingbird, directed by Tony Award winner Bartlett Sher, is a powerhouse of a production that is filled to the brim with excellent direction, haunting score, and stellar performances.
Emmy Award winner Richard Thomas (The Waltons) gives a powerful and searching performance as Atticus Finch, the small-town Southern lawyer who epitomizes the ideal human qualities of goodness, tolerance, and decency while bravely standing up to racism in small-town Alabama in the mid-1930s.
Melanie Moore (Hello, Dolly!) and Justin Mark portray Atticus Finch's two children (Scout and Jem) while narrating the story for the audience along with their friend Dill, played masterfully by Steven Lee Johnson. Jacqueline Williams triumphs in this production as Calpurnia with such power and delivery. Yaegel T. Welch is strong and brilliant in the role of the defendant, Tom Robinson. Mary Badham, the Academy Award nominee for playing Scout in the 1962 To Kill a Mockingbird film, brings nostalgia to the play with her performance as Mrs. Dubose.
Bartlett Sher's direction masterfully highlights every aspect of the production and its performers, while guiding us through a story that takes the audience on a roller coaster ride of emotions, the light-hearted and innocent moments along with the serious, shocking, and heartbreaking ones that one would expect from this nostalgic story. Adam Guettel's score blends beautifully with the piece, adding an additional element of theatricality.
To Kill a Mockingbird has been one of the most successful plays in Broadway history, and it is understandable why that is. To Kill a Mockingbird is not just a play, it is a theatrical event that is one of the "must-see" theater pieces in Philadelphia this year.
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