To Kill A Mockingbird by Harper Lee - Essay Example

To Kill a Mockingbird “To Kill a Mocking Bird” is a highly praised novel written by Harper Lee on the issue of racial bias and injustice done with Black Americans after the Great Depression. Other than racial inequality, there are some other themes in the novel, like courage and compatibilities amongst the family members. The story revolves around a family of single father and his two children, along with a hidden neighbor. The narrator of the story is the daughter of the house, and the father is the actual hero being a lawyer who defends a Black American wrongly blamed for the rape of a White American woman.

He tries his best to save the black, but the biased judiciary convicts him and in the end he was executed. The children watched the prosecution and they were very dishearten by the attitude of society towards black people, at the same time they were proud of their father who did justice with his passion and did not take the side of the wrong one. The novel was published in the year 1960, followed by an Oscar award winning film in the year 1962, based on this story with the same name. Since then, the novel is studied at schools in order to teach children to combat with racism and to emphasize tolerance within the society.

Many theatres arrange plays by this famous novel to remind the present generations their past and to avoid such situations in the coming future (Lee. 1995). The Dallas theatre centre, in collaboration with the Casa Manana, presented “To Kill a Mockingbird” from September 24 to October 2 at Casa Manana Theatre, and from October 21 to November 20, at Dee and Charles Wyly Theatre. The play was an excellent attempt to squeeze the lengthy novel into two hours and at the same time to convey the actual moral of the novel to the audience.

The acting was superb and the set was really admirable. Background and the clothes greatly depicted early modern time. The light effects were outstanding; the coordination and hard work of the team was obvious from the play. Since it was a co-production, it was devoid of any set design mistakes. Among all the scenes, the scene of summation, in particular, had the most enchanting effect. It really made its way to cast a spell on the audience to fully understand that what might have happened to the black people by the cruel and unjust society of the past.

The powerful role of the father and the lawyer, Atticus Finch, was performed by an award-winning actor Jeremy Webb. The director, Wendy Dann from Casa Manana, tried immensely to bring the best out of her entire cast. The courtroom speech delivered by Jeremy Webb was fabulous, and he spoke the lines eloquently enough. Then the lines uttered by the narrator, “they hung him on a tree”, made the effect more sensitive (To Kill a Mockingbird "Summation" scene). There is a scene of Halloween party in the play, comprising all the children who played their leading parts in the play.

They really did a superb job in casting an impression of innocence and the impact that the wicked and bias world had on them, forcing them to leave their innocence and get prepared to face the tactics of society. The most promising performance was carried out by the villain of the story, the father of so-called rape victim, Bob Ewell. He did his best to look like a villain and make the audience hate him as much as they can, as a liar and as a racist. Although almost all the basic characters gave in their best, but somewhere in the show there was a lack of feelings, the actors could not completely absorb the character into themselves.

May be, it was due to the fact that the actual story was based on a novel, not a play with dialogues, so we all imagined our own characters full of emotions like innocence, revenge, fight for justice, anti-racism etc. The characters who displayed all these emotions may not be able to fulfill the actual requirements of facial expressions, but we have to give them a margin of performance, particularly to the children. Perhaps, children of today cannot understand fully the thoughts and emotions of the children who actually saw or felt that injustice against the other race or blood.

All in all, the attempt was good enough in depicting and reminding the social unjust of those times and to give a moral lesson to present generation. Bibliography Lee, Harper. To Kill a Mocking Bird. 1995. Print. Casa Manana - To Kill a Mockingbird "Summation" scene http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KmY-iREBxeQandfeature=related Casa Manana's To Kill a Mockingbird - Interview with the Director http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DwSnpl7y3kwandfeature=related