(This article was written by Patrick Ressler and published in the Goshen Commons) http://www.goshencommons.org/2012/11/mockingbird-speaks-to-the-nature-of-impossible-courage/
Last night, Bethany Christian Schools took on a whopper of a play with the opening night of “To Kill a Mockingbird.” The characters from the Harper Lee classic are iconic in American literature—Scout and Atticus Finch, Boo Radley—as is the gripping story, set in Maycomb, Ala., in 1935.
These high school students donned their Sunday best, studied Southern accents and prepared to send a powerful message about America’s sordid, racist history. No doubt this process forced the students to challenge their own understandings of race—here and now—in Goshen, Ind.
The story is told through the eyes of Scout, played by a seventh grader, Gabriela Klopfenstein, as narrated by her future self, played by a senior, Sadie Gustafson-Zook. Scout guides us through the trial of Tom Robinson, a black man defended by her father, Atticus. The most powerful parts of the play happen in a courtroom, where the entire cast watches the proceedings.
Jesse Bontreger, a senior, delivers a powerful speech as Atticus Finch, pleading with the jury of audience members to not convict a man they know to be innocent. This pivotal moment has the potential to be trite, overdone and preachy—but Bontreger brings a delightful humanness and charisma to Atticus, while preserving the message in an incredibly heartfelt and meaningful way.
The play is punctuated by spirituals characteristic of the time period. These moments allow the audience space to process the difficult material of “Mockingbird” and add depth to the show’s emotional core. The actors sing these songs with commitment to the powerful story they are telling—most notably a trio singing “Motherless Child” and “Poor Wayfarin’ Stranger” sung a cappella by a ninth grader, Elijah Lora. His haunting performance inspired applause in an otherwise clapping-free show. In the weight of incredible struggle, the music of “Mockingbird” speaks volumes.
[The play was also punctuated by a fire alarm in the ninth inning. A smoke alarm at the other end of the building mysteriously went off without cause, forcing the audience out of doors for several minutes. Upon returning to our seats, the actors graced the audience with a focused finish to their work.]
Bethany Christian has a diverse student body—diverse enough to cast African-American students in African-American roles. While this casting is necessary for the credibility of the story, the production was colorblind in other ways. The Maycomb townsfolk included many Korean students, adding another layer to the audience’s processing of race relations in 1935 and today. Director Talashia Keim Yoder and her assistant, Kelly Frey, had the difficult task of navigating this racial commentary, helped by the dramaturg, Regina Shands Stoltzfus.
The success of this show is due largely to the inspirational feeling that only social justice theater can give. We all know what it is like to see communities divided by race, class, political taste and religious beliefs. “To Kill a Mockingbird” shows us the importance of fighting for justice, even in the face of incredible odds. Harper Lee’s Atticus says this of courage: “Courage is not a man with a gun in his hand. It’s to know you’re licked before you begin but you begin anyway and you see it through no matter what.”
Be courageous, my friends, in beginning to peel back the layers of injustice that pervade our institutions, political systems and places of worship. Atticus goes on: “You rarely win, but sometimes you do.”
“To Kill a Mockingbird” plays tonight, the 17th, at 7:30 p.m. and tomorrow, the 18th, at 3:00 p.m.