Jessica Chastain, Uma Thurman and Hugh Jackman were among the A-list audience as the long-awaited stage adaptation of To Kill A Mockingbird finally made its world premiere on Broadway last night.
The play had a troubled start, involving years of negotiation and a now-settled lawsuit with original author Harper Lee’s estate.
Aaron Sorkin, who wrote TV series The West Wing and The Social Network, the film about Facebook’s founders, is behind the adaptation of the classic novel published in 1960 and set in Thirties Alabama. Anne Hathaway, supermodel Iman and Mad Men star Jon Hamm also attended the opening night at the Shubert Theatre in Manhattan.
Reviewers were largely impressed by director Bartlett Sher’s production. The New York Times described it as “beautiful”; the LA Times said it addressed “troubled times about the inseparability of race and justice in America”; and The Guardian gave it four stars, proclaiming: “Aaron Sorkin spellbinds Broadway”.
However, the Wall Street Journal’s reviewer was less enamoured, describing it as a “grotesque caricature of Lee’s novel”.
Jeff Daniels, 63, stars as honourable lawyer Atticus Finch, whose children are played by adults. Celia Keenan-Bolger plays Scout, Will Pullen takes the role of her brother Jem, while LaTanya Richardson Jackson is the family’s housekeeper Calpurnia. Gbenga Akinnagbe plays Tom Robinson, Finch’s client who is falsely accused of rape.
Keenan-Bolger, 40, told the Evening Standard that she “tried not to think too much” about what Lee, who died aged 89 in 2016, would have made of their version, but said: “Obviously, my hope is that she would be very proud of what we’ve made... What I do know is that she wrote something in 1960, set in 1934 that still resonates deeply in 2018. I think she would feel pretty good about that.
“The play is here to do what the book did in 1960: ask big questions about our country, examine our justice system and think about decency. I think any fan of the book will be excited to see that represented on stage.”
Sorkin, 57, won an Oscar for The Social Network and numerous Emmys for political drama The West Wing, starring Martin Sheen as President Jed Bartlet. The screenwriter recently revealed that To Kill A Mockingbird producer Scott Rudin first approached him three years ago after “several years of trying” to obtain the stage rights.
Writing in New York Magazine, Sorkin said: “It was very exciting. It was also a suicide mission, and I understood that right away. This wasn’t just any Pulitzer Prize–winning novel — it’s one that holds a sacred place on America’s bookshelf.” Sorkin said he was “approved” by Lee three weeks before her death. But after deciding on rehearsal and opening dates, the production was sued by Lee’s estate, which claimed they had strayed from the original characters and “spirit of the novel”.
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They countersued, but Sorkin said the parties later settled after he agreed to remove “Jesus Christ” and “Goddammit” from the script and references to Atticus, who was based on Lee’s father, having a gun and drinking whiskey.
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