‘It’s quite terrifying’: staging To Kill a Mockingbird

Fifty-five years after it was published, Harper Lee's To Kill a Mockingbird is getting a sequel, Go Set a Watchman. Lee's original novel has already been adapted for the stage, and the play will have its Irish debut in the Bord Gáis Energy Theatre on May 4th. "Our producers were of course laughing all the way to wherever producers laugh all the way to when the new novel was announced," says Daniel Betts, who plays the book's father-figure hero, Atticus Finch, "You couldn't hope for a better bit of buzz."

The sequel – not the adaptation – is controversial. There are questions about why this manuscript is to be published now, after spending years in a “secure location”, and there are even rumblings that the elderly Lee is being manipulated (which she denies).

"It's her first, unpublished novel," says Betts. "This is the book which they read and said, 'We like the flashbacks; go write that', and she wrote To Kill a Mockingbird." He smiles. "So I worry it won't be as good."

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Jemimah Bennett as ‘Scout’ Finch. Photograph: Johan Persson

Betts and everyone else involved with the stage version are hugely protective of the text. The actors hold the book over their heads reverentially at the end of the performance. It won Lee a Pulitzer, became the subject of a film starring Gregory Peck and has only grown in stature over the years. Lee never published another book after To Kill a Mockingbird and she has long retreated from the media glare.

Miscarriage of justice

At its core is a story about a miscarriage of justice. The noble, long-suffering Tom Robinson, played by the excellent Zackary Momoh, is falsely accused of raping a white woman, and is defended by decent, world-weary Atticus Finch.

But the power of this is magnified by the telling, with proceedings viewed through the eyes of Atticus’s worldly six-year-old daughter, “Scout” Finch, who has more pressing concerns and obsessions (not least spying on their reclusive neighbour, Boo Radley, and contemplating her dead mother). It’s a book about childhood, family, community and play, which also happens to be about injustice, bigotry, authority and hate. It’s so rich, complex and flawed, that I imagine each person who loves it loves a different book.

“It’s quite terrifying,” says Betts. “You’re treading on people’s memories and affection, and these characters are so vivid in people’s minds; there’s a sense of ownership of them. You tread carefully because you tread on people’s dreams.”

First staged

Christopher Sergel’s adaptation of the book was first staged at the Regent’s Park Open Air Theatre in 2013, directed by Timothy Sheader. It was relaunched last September with a new cast, including three rotating trios of child actors (the version I saw featured Leo Heller and siblings Jemima and Harry Bennett).

Connie Walker, who plays two characters in the play, Mrs Dubose and Stephanie Crawford ("a vicious racist and a racist with a smile"), suggests the change from outdoor to indoor performance spaces has had some effect on things. "When certain words, like the 'n-word' are used, there's an intake of breath and you feel a real frisson of something," she says. "Sometimes you hear a little giggle because people don't know how to respond. You just feel this kind of tension, particularly during the court scenes. In the park you could sense it, but it dispersed. In a theatre you can really feel it because there's a roof, and the lid's on."

At the West Yorkshire Playhouse in Leeds the stage is sparse except for chairs and benches around the edges, an old spring bed and a very realistic-looking tree with a tyre swing. “It’s a bit of a beast to set up,” says stage manager Davin Patrick of the tree.

At points in the play, actors read from the book in their own accents before getting into costume and character (only Atticus and the three children never break character). “The book is the star of this show without a doubt,” says Betts. Music is performed live by cast member Luke Potter (the songs have a folky, bluegrass feel to it), and outlines of locations are drawn in chalk on the stage by the actors during the play, each drawing labelled with childlike precision: “Atticus’s house” or “Boo Radley’s House”. Was this a problem when performed outdoors in the rain? No, says Patrick. “It’s rain-resistant chalk.”

It’s a very satisfying production. Watching the story unfold again, a few things strike me. Firstly its moral simplicity: Tom Robinson is innocent and justice is not done. In this version, the audience is addressed as “the jury” during courtroom scenes, making us complicit.

Atticus Finch seems different. Though still a paragon of honour and decency, he seems a little less perfect than I remember. He’s a largely absentee dad and he has a touch of the white saviour about him . . . Although, to be fair, any sort of saviour was welcome and brave in 1930s Alabama.

And then there’s the heart-rending power of a child’s questions. Scout’s query about her dead mother – “Did I love her?” – is devastating.

(There is also the headache-inducing power of a child loudly eating crisps: there are a lot of school tours).

I also expect to find the character-breaking, English-accented narration a bit distracting, but the story is so powerful I quickly forget it was happening. And anyway, I’m told that there’s a point to this conceit: it draws the audience from the past to the present.

And this is important to the cast. When I talk to them, the actors reference contemporary news stories, from racist Chelsea fans and the rise of Ukip to the shooting of Michael Brown by police in Ferguson.

Gangster No 1

Momoh is particularly keen to point out that racism didn’t stop in 1930s Alabama, that it affects him still in the roles he is offered. “It’s either ‘Gang Member No 1’ or ‘Gang Member No 2’,” he says and sighs. “I’ve got family members who doss around all day but I also have family members who are doctors or surgeons. I love playing this role because it allows me to play something of my past, but nowadays there’s not really much in the UK that allows me to play something of my present.”

So he and his colleagues want the play to make us think about bigotry and injustice in the contemporary world.

“Our challenge is to ensure that people do not leave the theatre thinking, ‘Isn’t that a wonderful story and isn’t it awful how black people were treated in the 1930s,’ ” says Betts. “Because if that’s how people leave, we’ve failed.”

To Kill a Mockingbird is at the Bord Gáis Theatre, Dublin, May 4th-9th