Aaron Sorkin’s To Kill a Mockingbird, adapted from Harper Lee’s 1960 Pulitzer Prize-winning novel, first premiered in the West End in 2018, a year into Donald Trump’s first tenure. Eight years on, the performance is back at Wyndham’s Theatre and Trump is in the Oval Office again – and the notes of Sorkin’s message have only strengthened.
This is a play told through the lens of its period setting: from Ann Roth’s costumes of three-piece suits and braces to racial abuse and discrimination. In the Deep South, the residents of Maycomb, Alabama, find themselves struggling through the Great Depression even as the long shadow of the lost Civil War hangs over them. A small-town lawyer, Atticus Finch (played by the brilliant Richard Coyle), gets brought on to a case to defend Tom Robinson (Aaron Shosanya), a married African American man who stands accused of raping a white teenage girl, Mayella (Evie Hargreaves).
The events that unfold that summer are narrated in an endearing southern drawl by Atticus’s children, the protective Jem (Gabriel Scott) and fabulously tomboyish Scout (hilarious Anna Munden) in her denim overalls and choppy blonde bob, who are joined by their friend Dill, the play’s jester with a backstory at odds with his kindness. Miriam Buether’s naturalistic set seamlessly moves the story from the courtroom to the Finch’s porch and back again.
Although full of witticisms that filled the theatre with laughter, Sorkin’s play by no means makes comfortable viewing. For all its brilliance, To Kill a Mockingbird is confrontational, for both its history and increased relevance. “America was built by white people!” Mayella shouts hysterically from the witness stand as the star-spangled banner hangs limply behind her. You cannot help but think of the fear in American cities as Ice agents prowl the streets, and that a growing faction of the Maga movement would agree with Mayella. To Kill a Mockingbird is a stark reminder that Trump’s America has taken two steps back.
To Kill a Mockingbird plays at Wyndham’s Theatre, London WC2N until 12 September
[Further reading: Pride the musical: a rousing reminder that solidarity can triumph]
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