October 23rd, 2006
Saw a lot of canaries in Norwich while walking to see a Mockingbird at the Theatre Royal two days ago. Considering I don’t really like Autumn, I have to admit it would have been described as a “beautiful Autumn day”. The sun was casting long shadows over the remains of the city wall, and there was a strong wind blowing leaves from the few remaining trees into the crouds of people around Chapelfields. I imagined the day as a throw-back to when Norwich was once famous for its gardens:
Either a city in an orchard or an orchard in a city, so equally are houses and trees blended in it, so that the pleasure of the country and the populousness of the city meet here together.
–Thomas Fuller, “The Worthies of England” 1662.
Norwich has changed significantly even in my lifetime, with the addition of another American-style Mall: the Chapelfields Shopping Centre. I have been there a few times, but don’t particularly care for it. The shops inside are rather expensive in regards to the economy of the surrounding towns, which is a bit alienating. Over the last few years I have taken a dislike to such commercialism and find it sad that many teenagers and young people “meet up” there as an occasion, as opposed to a necessity.
Though I admit I started reading Palin’s Diaries over a coffee in the mini-Starbucks in Borders Bookshop (while the others were shopping) but it all seemed very artificial. It was implied that you could buy a book from Borders and settle to read it over a coffee in the same session, but I found it screamed “pretentious arse literary person”, which I suppose is somewhat true, but I don’t like to make the fact so obvious.
It’s a shame that other areas of Norwich are being seemingly being neglected. The Theatre Royal is relying on donations to supplement the planned renovations which will bring, amongst other things, more leg-room–hurrah! To Kill a Mockingbird pushed on for three hours, and with current arrangements, my left leg slowly but surely disconnected itself from the rest of my body. Though that was the only part of my body that was going to sleep during the thought-provoking adaptation of the book by Harper Lee.
Mockingbird is set in Maycomb, Alabama during the years of the American Depression. The redeeming character in a village full of bigots is Atticus (Duncan Preston) the idealist lawyer and father to Scout, a young tomboy and Jem; Scout’s protective older brother. The children are joined by Dill, a young literate boy who slipped his unobservant parents with plans to stay with his aunt in Maycomb. Dill becomes fixated on a foreboding house which is the residence of ‘Boo’ Radley, called as such to reflect his ghost-like existence, having not been seen outside in several years.
The play’s shape is set in the first scene, with the characters talking about the merits of a mockingbird: that it sings all day and doesn’t eat the grain, thus is undeserving of any wish to end its life. It becomes apparent that the symbolic mockingbird in the play is Tom Robinson, a black man who is accused of rape by the daughter of the local exemplar of “white trash” Bob Ewell. Atticus defends Tom in court against the unyielding prejudice of the jury; they try him guilty even though it is clear from evidence the rape didn’t happen and Ewell was the one who gave his daughter the injuries.
Tom is killed trying to escape after a failed appeal and the role of the mockingbird falls to Boo. Walking home from a harvest festival, Scout and Jem are attacked by a drunken Ewell who breaks Jem’s arm. They are saved by Boo who kills Ewell using the knife he was then trying to slit Jem’s throat with. Atticus decides to agree with the sheriff that matters are best explained as Ewell killing himself from what he had done, to protect Boo from the public eye, even though it goes against his overriding principles of honesty.
I have never read the book, but from watching the play it is clear that it has been a source to other works of modern literature, film and television. This however left me with the feeling I had seen some things before, especially in the courtroom scene, as there was a noticeable lack of suspension when it came to the verdict; it was clear Tom would not be ruled innocent. Though understandably the play wasn’t at fault in this. Saying that though, perhaps the lack of suspension was implied by Preston’s rending of Atticus’s heart-felt, yet desperate, plea.
The southern accents were reproduced near-flawlessly from the outset, which helped to establish the atmosphere of a sleepy 1930s American town. The staging wasn’t overly complex, with scene transitions marked simply, for instance by covering Boo’s door and setting out chairs to make a courtroom. Though what was on stage was cleverly utilised by the actors to add to the overall effect: from Dill’s elaborate sneaking up to Boo’s front door, to the flapping of whatever was at hand to offer some respite against the heat.
What was fresh about the plot was that it wasn’t overly dogmatic. It offered a realistic stance on the pitiable attitudes of the perceived racial differences of that age. Atticus symbolised the truth, the children conduits of hope, and the jury the oppressors of both.
It’d be a lie to say that modern society is free of the prejudices of that age, but if the plot was a simple exercise to show racism as wrong, the majority would leave nothing gained. As the play is largely from a child’s perspective, there’s a different feeling at the end. There’s a more complicated sense of injustice: the children became disillusioned with seeing Atticus’s greatest efforts to change things fail and though he consoles them in the fact that he kept the jury out longer than in many similar cases, the disjointed feeling is still apparent.
It moves from only being about racism to being about seemingly immovable injustice in general–the complicated situations in the Middle East spring to mind. Like the children, we could also become disillusioned and write off the situation; easily done if you have already tried once and failed. But as Atticus alludes to earlier in the play, a person ultimately has to answer to their conscience alone, whatever the extraneous negative circumstances.