THEATRE
PREVIEW
LAMB'S
PLAYERS THEATRE “TO KILL A MOCKINGBIRD”
Published
in KPBS On Air Magazine April 1992
Remember
Atticus Finch? And his spunky little
daughter Scout? They're coming to
The first and
only novel of Harper Lee won the Pulitzer Prize in 1961; the unforgettable film
version, starring Gregory Peck, was released the next year. "That movie, which I saw when I was
young," says Lamb's artistic director Robert Smyth, "was one of the
reasons I wanted to go into theater.
The story had a sense of power for me -- about community, integrity,
standing up for a personal sense of conscience, raising a voice against
mass-mindedness in a context of bigotry.
The power of that image and story so affected me as a child, it's
something I constantly carry with me.
The strength of that storytelling helped point me toward theater."
The novel, set
in a small
The book took
the country by storm. Richard Sullivan,
writing in the Chicago Sunday Tribune, called it "a novel of strong
contemporary national significance."
Critical reviews griped about excessive melodrama and sentimentality,
which were Smyth's chief complaints about Christopher Sergel's stage
adaptation. "We're using the
script as a launching pad," the director admits. "We're gonna make it unique." He's doing that in two ways:
First, by telling the story as a flashback, from the point of view of
the grown-up Scout. Second, Smyth has
cast a real father-daughter team to play Atticus and young Scout.
Carrie Heath,
age nine, hasn't had much onstage experience, but she's been steeped in theater
her whole life. Her father, David
Cochran Heath, a Lamb's full-time staff member for eleven years, has been
actively involved in innumerable productions.
(In fact, he was torn between the stage and the delivery room on the
night of her birth; he managed to be present for both productions). Her mother Beth is bookkeeper and executive
assistant to the artistic director of Lamb's.
Carrie's watched the whole theatrical process, from audition through
rehearsal to opening night. She and her
brother Allan, age 7, appeared in a Lamb's Christmas show four years ago. She's attended Lamb's drama camp, studied
gymnastics and performed in ballet recitals.
Not a very extensive resume, but the kid exudes confidence.
"I think
it'll be pretty easy to play the part of my dad's daughter," Carrie says. "I was surprised when I got the part,
because some of the other girls had more experience. But I felt really excited.
I can memorize pretty well, and I'll probably practice at home with my
dad. I think it'll be fun."
Dad thinks so,
too. "I was really pulling for
her," David Heath admitted.
"But then, when she got cast, I said, 'Oh, my goodness, this could
be a scary experience.' There's always
the possibility of failure, or failure to meet the expectations of others. I'm more nervous for her than I ever was for
myself. But I'm very excited about the
exposure it'll give her. She's in a
muti-racial, multi-ethnic school (Carrie
is part of the Gifted and Talented program at a writing and literature magnet
school in Chula Vista), but this play really deals with the heart of human
nature's tendency to want to find people you can feel superior to. The story helped me to understand racism
today."
Heath sees
pluses and minuses in the father-daughter casting. "One of the advantages is the familiarity you need to make
the whole thing believable. That we've
got. But if the girl were not somebody
I knew, it would help bring out some of the distance you had in the South at
that time. The father figure was
slightly unapproachable. But this story
is a little bit of a departure. Because
Scout's mother has passed away, her father tries to be her confidant, has to be
the one to help her deal with questions about sexuality and rape."
Is he worried
that Carrie will bring these questions home?
"Well," Heath says pensively, "we've always tried to
create an atmosphere in which questions are easy to ask. It might be interesting to see what comes up
now. It might prove to be a
steppingstone to good conversation at home...
One thing that helps me relax in this whole process is that I know the
director so well. I trust him as an
artist and in his ability to communicate.
That relieves me of responsibility and uncomplicates the relationship; I
don't have to be actor, director and father all at the same time. But Carrie will have to learn that onstage,
she's not my daughter; she's another actor working with me. We're on equal footing, and we both have to
listen to the director.
"The thing
that excites me about it," Heath continues, "is I keep thinking,
'What a marvelous piece to have a chance to do as a child.' It has strong things to say about character
and choice and the worth of an individual.
Heartwarming things about human relations with people, whether they look
like us or not. A great supplementary education. And an adventure for all of us."
©1992 Patté
Productions Inc.