To Kill A Mockingbird

I'm seeing this in a couple of weeks - very excited!

Saw this on Friday. The staging is very minimal. One porch for the Finch home and one courtroom set up (audience members avoid extreme stage right up to about row H if you want to avoid looking at just the back of the 'defendant' a table and chairs and a guitarist who is on stage throughout and plays very loud 'incidental' music over some of the dialogue. If you sit over stage left at the front you'll have the same issue with a pianist. Most of the action takes place centre stage but the sight lines are not great over there with musicians and a table in the way ($100 a ticket too!)

I was a little underwhelmed to be honest. The bulk of the play is narrated by the children who then step into the scenes. It took me a good while to warm to the 3 adults playing the three main children. Always a bit cringey watching adults play kids. Scout just about convinced but Dill was definitely a child in the broadest sense. The actor playing Jem in contrast made no attempt to 'play down' at all (looked quite buff) and that felt just as weird as he was supposed to be 10 and came off as Scout's 20 something brother. All very odd. As a result I think the more touching moments with father and children didn't really land for me.
It was a lot funnier (particularly the Dill character) than I remember the book to be - read it a long time ago but suspect this was added in the adaptation or a directorial choice. Some of the characters had been combined and some omitted completely so the story was fairly simplified at times and bits I suspected differed from the book
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Jeff Daniels as Atticus was perfectly serviceable but sadly despite the subject and original source material we didn't feel like we'd seen the broadway 'event' we'd been hoping for.

Scout is obv the main but all three children narrate.

According to The Hollywood Reporter, a London production will be announced in the next few weeks.

If they want Jeff Daniels with the original cast, it likely won't be until 2020. I suppose they could recast it but I think they'll need a name for Atticus. 

Piccadilly would be my choice as well, it's smaller capacity wise but stage wise, it's similar to the Shubert. The Gielgud could be another option but they'd have to wait a while.

It's rumored Ed Harris will replace Jeff Daniels in November. I would love to see him if it's true, he is one of my favorite actors.

A play on a stage is seen by over 10 thousand people.  That's amazing.

www.playbill.com/article/watch-footage-from-to-kill-a-mockingbird-at-madison-square-garden

Final count of attendees was much larger. Reports now say 18,000.

www.washingtonpost.com/entertainment/theater_dance/watching-to-kill-a-mockingbird-with-18000-teenagers-was-one-of-the-most-profound-theater-experiences-of-my-career/2020/02/27/6c084c68-5969-11ea-ab68-101ecfec2532_story.html

The producers say they'll do it again.

Greg Kinnear will be playing Atticus Finch starting April 21st.

Greg Kinnear