VOLUME 15 Numbers
SMOKE SIGNALS
STUDENT NEWSPAPER OF CHOWAN COLLEGE
November 20, 1986
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To KiU A Mockingbird
A Review by Ken Wolf skill
In I960, Harper I>ee, an Alabaman, was dealing with a
dangerous, hot issue in To Kill a Mockingbird, the story of an
established and respected white lawyer daring to defend a black
man accused of raping a white woman. This was three years
before these united States were torn apart by race riots, four
years before Martin Luther King was awarded the Nobel Peace
Prize. In Alabama in 1960 (and still in 1963 when I started college
there) the “coloreds” had their own water fountains, their own
entrances at the movie houses, their own bathrooms at the service
stations, but not as a mark of their privilege: these served as a
constant reminder to blacks that their “place” was separate and
apart. We were all white at my school and at the pancake house
and at the Holiday Inn. They were starting sit-ins, not at Mama
O’Grady’s, but at Woolworth’s lunch counter; they were refusing
second-class treatment, not at the movies or on jets or at my
school, but on buses. Blacks were demanding equal treatment
while at least one white Christian I heard preaching to his
congregation was saying "We’ll nevah let a niggah into our
church!” (“Nevah, Lowud, nevah!” a man echoed.) Times were
tense between the races in those days.
In her story that suggests that blacks don’t always receive
justice because whites have some preconceived ideas about them.
Miss Lee uses a setting of 1935, as though to say, “This was the
way things used to be.” She also portrays the oppressed black as a
kindly, shy, and crippled young man who wouldn’t nay, couldn’t
harm the loud vulgar white trash who are his accusers. At the
center of the story is Atticus Finch, the wise lawyer, the reluctant
hero, the unassuming and modest nice guy who finishes last,
losing to obviously stupid and open bigotry. That he is a bird-
loving father to a couple of innocent and growing kids who are
awfully cute helps make his stand against stupid bigotry even
more noble.
Thus, a quarter of a century ago, in tense times, whites were
eased by a work of fiction into feeling that a Christian and
democratic (though a bit condecending) view of blacks was not
only acceptable and desirable, but noble and fine. In 1986, when
racial tension is certainly less visible, we-blacks and whites- see
still the humaneness and goodness of fair and just treatment: the
innocent black youth shouldn’t be jailed, much less killed. (It’s
okay, however, if the scuzzy, drunken red-neck who beats his
daughter dies.)
Perhaps we see a little more easily now what Miss Lee was
doing with “Boo” Radley, too: he’s a little different from “us”
perhaps, like gays and wops and Jew-boys and them furreners;’
but if you only get to know him, he might not seem so scary; he
might even turn out to be good (though abnormal).
Mrs. Boyce’s production of the play was successfully involving,
getting the audience to ask, “Is the black man going to be
acquitted? Is old man Ewell going to get away with his lies? Are
the children going to be disturbed by the trial’s outcome?” Part of
her success was the staging, especially of the trial scenes. But in
large part, she was successful because of her cast.
Kids don’t generally make good kids on the amateur stage, but
Hugh Davis, as the cast-off child made sensitive by his rejection,
and Mickey Mulder, as the boy growing into knowledge of
society’s meanness, showed more naturalness and Ufe than many
of their elders in the cast. It’s rather awkward to play a kid next to
an actual kid, but Jennifer Mekovsky, as Scout, was uninhibitedly
youthful and energetic. As Scout, grown up, Jeanie Adams was
very smooth, very pleasant; she almost seemed to love the story,
almost convinced that it meant something important to her.
Stupid rednecks are pretty easy to play, especially if you’re
allowed to spit on stage. But Hargus Taylor, as Bob Ewell, seemed
genuinely ignorant and mean: he’d hurt you. And he wouldn’t
even think about it. Laura Ainslie, as the daughter, had one of the
most interesting performances: she too seemed genuinely
ignorant, but there was also a hint of conniving shrewdness in her;
and she almost suggested the character’s sensuality but gave up
the coyness for the conniving.
As the innocent victim of racism, Patrick Rudolph effectively
cowered and vinced and was pulled around. I felt he made the
character almost too subliterate, muffling the pride and un
derstanding in him.
Scott Cassell played Atticus, the exceptional, humane lawyer
whose sense of justice transcends social custom and public will.
Although Atticus seemed to find a temper and got tricky and cute
at the trial, Cassell made him seem generally a large, solid
presence of truth, sincerity, honesty, and goodness in a shakj^
time for his Southern town and his confused kids.
The production was smooth and provocative, calling less at
tention to itself, I think, than the very important issues Harper
Lee gently raised.
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