12 Angry Men
12 Angry Men
By Reginald Rose
Directed by Sylvia Vicchiullo
Breakthrough Theatre, Winter Park FL</strong>
If there’s one skill most people never master, its analytic thinking. That the ability to look at something and consider that it has multiple interpretations, some of which may run contrary to your deepest belief. But juries must think this way, they must sort out the conflicting goals and opinions of defense and prosecution and this closed room drama is as good an example of the process as you’ll see. A young man, presumably black man is accused of murdering his father. There are two eye witnesses, and he had motive, method, and opportunity. His alibi stinks, he loudly threatened the victim, perhaps he even flashed the murder weapon to his friends. The consensus as we open is guilty, guilty, and guilty. But one man, the thoughtful Juror 8 (Cory Boughton) harbors a slim shadow of a reasonable doubt. Over the next hour he expands that doubt, overcoming racial prejudice, eyewitness testimony and two tickets to a baseball game.
Twelve actors and a largish conference table push against the very walls of Breakthrough’s Theatre. But the blocking was excellent, Vicchiullo moves her men around and tucks them into odd corners when not needed, and we rarely if ever miss a critical facial expression. Bret Carson played the loudly racist Juror 10, he’s uninterested in what happened, only that it give him change to take out someone who’s out breeding him. Jim Huber (Juror 3) takes this more personally, he sees the defendant as a proxy for his own flawed family life. David Strauss (Juror 4) plays the WASPish Stock broker who never flusters while Rollin Smith (juror 9) carefully explains why and old man might bend the truth. Tom Larkin’s concern is his tickets, but the game is call on account of rain, and Marty Wicks is the immigrant with the Peter Lorre voice and the demeanor of a watch maker.
Even though the story flows predictably, there’s plenty of tension. These men ARE angry – besides being locked in a hot room when they could be doing something more enjoyable, their anger comes from challenged beliefs and a forced look into their own souls and hypocrisies. The claustrophobia of jury room is perfectly captured in this shoe box of a theatre, and as civics lesson go, this is exceptional gripping theater.
For more information, please visit http://www.breakthroughtheatre.com
