The acting was superb. The experience was out of this world. The staff was, as they always are, extra. Trouble No. 1 was the content.

“To Kill a Mockingbird” is, really, one big exercise in self-congratulatory feel good for white people. It is a Bildungsroman. A country lawyer in Jim Crow Alabama during the Great Depression is arm-twisted into defending a wrongfully accused Black townsman. He delivers a compassionate and brilliant defense. He respects and exhibits decency towards his client. He loses the case. The client dies.

The Black experience is absent. Tom Robinson and his family are a flat file. They serve as a prop to the white Bildung. He and his horrified, traumatized family have no voice.

Thing is, “To Kill a Mockingbird,” is, like most of the legacy of the 20th century, one big individual non-solution to a collective problem.

The collective problem is the free rein that the state of Alabama conferred on the KKK to inflict their terror on Black communities. It is the bigoted criminality that is the criminal (non-) justice system of the Jim Crow South.

The individual solution: be kind to your fellow Black client. That was trouble No. 1.

Trouble number two? The masses. The audience. The near-religious fervor. The parking garage was FULL. The auditorium was SOLD OUT. The house was AT CAPACITY. Compare that to the November show “Ain’t Too Proud: The Temptations.” That show was NOT sold out. The demographics: older, white. People of color? I noticed three.

When Atticus Finch entered the stage, the audience clapped and cheered. He had said no words and delivered no performance yet. Obviously, the applause went to the IDEA of Atticus. To be sure, the applause was not misplaced; Richard Thomas ended up delivering an extraordinary performance. But the applause held a tinge of cultish fervor. Creepy.

In 1960, when the novel was first published, white men being decent to the Black underdog may have been progressive and novel.
It is 2023, folks!

Floy Jeffares, Lakewood