Twelve Familiar Jurors

A week from right now I will be enjoying yet another open’in of another show—I think it is my 62nd show to open, but frankly, I have lost count.

The play we will present to the KA community is one of my warhorses, the tight 90-minute no-intermission drama originally produced for 1950s television, and then as a major motion picture as Twelve Angry Men. Since I have always opted to cast the play with males and females, one must adjust the title to Twelve Angry Jurors.

I chose this play for a couple of reasons: one, there is no budget, so one certainly can quickly cross off dozens, nay hundreds, of possible productions, and this play requires no outlay whatsoever. You find a space in which to perform, grab a good sturdy table and some chairs, get a couple of regular props, and boom—you got a play. Secondly, I chose this play, even more than the monetary prudence of reason number one, because it is a director’s feast—no other production values to distract a director (you know, like sets and costumes and tricky effects and lighting cues, et cetera) and one can really work with a team of actors on effective, naturalistic acting. Third, this play is close to my heart—a play I have directed before, very memorably, in 1994, 1997, 2001, and 2005.

This year I decided to direct two plays in the spring, and I needed cheap (have I mentioned that?) and I sought out feasts for an actor and a director, and plays with messages to both the heart and the mind. I decided on Twelve Angry Jurors and Our Town, plays that I have directed at both Charlotte Latin and Hackley. I decided to celebrate the ‘quotidian’ this year, and save on the money but not on the heart.

One major difference in directing the play in Jordan has nothing to do with my actors in Jordan. When I have done this play in the past, it has always been a play at the end of a season, and actually, at the end of the high school dramatic careers for some of my most beloved actors. The play has always been cheap, but it has always been part of a last-ditch effort to work with my dear actors one last time. Here, that longevity just doesn’t exist yet. I have only directed one other play, and for many, I cast them in their first play ever in this one. So that is different. Instead of Twelve Angry Jurors being the 13th play like with Eric Zion, or the 10th play like Harrison Unger, this is for some of them the first opportunity to breathe life into a dramatic character and work with a cast at cultivating excellence.

The first time I repeated a play I worried that I would simply live in the past—shouldn’t every play be the first time to go to the well? I have decided that there are a handful of plays that I must do every few years, and some of you readers know which plays those are: I Never Saw Another Butterfly I have directed at three of my four schools, Our Country’s Good, and now Twelve Angry Jurors I will have directed at three of my four schools, along with soon Our Town.

Twelve Angry Jurors is a play as bland as butter and as brilliant as diamonds. The setting and premise is so simple. Twelve jurors, strangers before this court case, are sequestered to debate the guilt or innocence of a young, unseen, defendant. It is an actor’s feast because all 12 actors are on stage the entire time, and you get to hone the skills of an actor in that the way you sit, sigh, drum your fingers, drink water out of the water cooler, engage with the other jurors, and raise your hand to vote speaks, volumes about your character. The playwright gives you little to work with—you don’t even have a name, you are simply your juror number, and while you can guess how the play will go, it can still be nail-biting in watching the narrative unfold.

I have always staged the play so that an audience is surrounding the jury room of actors. At Charlotte Latin I placed the actors on stage in a theater of the round; at Hackley we performed it in the Lindsay Room, a great space where about 100 observers could be just a few feet away from the action. One year we performed the play while Timothy McVeigh was on trial, and many of the audience told me later it gave them a chance to reflect on the American judicial system and ponder how we do what we say in trying our criminals.

Last year, for my first play in Jordan, I consciously avoided doing an “American” play—I wanted to just show a little more than my American roots. But, since American plays are what I really know, this year I chose two quintessential American plays that I think will transcend place and time and can easily reach a Jordanian audience. One of the messages of Twelve Angry Jurors is how we should look past stereotypes and not shallowly judge people, and that we need to think about how we discuss a “them” group characteristic. I think this message can play effectively anywhere in the world.

Since I have done this play 5 times over the last 16 years, I know the play thoroughly. And when I cast the play, I enjoy the nostalgia of thinking back to previous casts and enjoying how much the actors in this particular play have enriched me. The “Henry Fonda” character to me will always be the “Chuck Edwards part,” the student-actor who first played the role for me in 1994. Juror #8 is the young man who acts as the moral compass in the play and instructs and guides the jury to think a little harder about what is a reasonable doubt (if you know Chuck, well, you know why I call it as I do). David played the part in 1997, and Tom in 2001, and Kenrick in 2005…my trip down memory lane, each time it is interesting to note how the actor must play a sage role and avoid treacle-y didacticism. This year I cast a younger actor in the role, not a senior, but a sophomore, so the audience won’t automatically guess that he is the voice of reason and compassion. I cast Mounir in the part—we have never worked together—in large part because he is a talented pianist and I knew he knows of a work ethic. How strange to cast someone I barely know in a part that has always been someone I knew so thoroughly!

Then there is the part of the “bigot,” a part I have always used in which to cast an actress. This is a meaty role with a killer monologue at the end (I call them “arias” in this play). This has always gone to my Meryl-Streep actress of that year, and the pedigree is rich as I recount that Catherine played the part in 1994, and Elizabeth in 1997, Liz in 2001, and Alyssa in 2005. Now I have another newcomer—a tall, elegant actress named Hana who is more softspoken than I have often elicited from actresses, but she is lethal and outstanding.

The third of the “showiest” parts is the loudmouth, angry, and embittered father, a part played by Lee J. Cobb in the movie, and played by dynamite actors in my productions. This part needs to feel as if it is essayed by a 50-ish actor, a terrific feat for an adolescent actor. This is a part that must be more than blather and bravado, and must touch the heart as the jurors, and the audience, realize he is hurting due to the alienation of his son. This juror also has a showstopper of an aria at the end of the play, and reminds me of Mama Rose’s breakdown in Gypsy. Again, the gallery of actors whom have tackled this role reads as a veritable who’s who of my great actors: Eric in 1994, and then Brent in 1997, and Kieran in 2001, and Harrison in 2005.

But as I said, each part is juicy in this play since all the actors (except the Guard, who appears from time to time, but even then I have cast the guard with actors who are just great to know, like Brent in 1994 and now Suhayb) are on “stage” the whole time, and each is afforded moments in which to shine. Here are the actors who are my line-up for the 2010 version:

Mohammad
Abdullah
Lawrence
Adel
Jamil
Dana
Rob
Mounir
Hanna
Hana
Burhan
Robert

I don’t direct them to emulate anyone else’s performance, but the rehearsal room is quite crowded, in a cosmic way, for me, as I think about Lyde and Bennett and Jen and Soyoung and Brian and Jake and Lani and Becky and Junko and Ethan and Melissa and Julia and all these great actors and how they have peppered this play for me over the last 16 years. You know, I am reminded of the interesting Ogden Nash observation as I contemplate this play and the casts: “Middle age is when you’ve met so many people that every new person you meet reminds you of someone else.”
I just have to do this play every few years—it is such a great experience as you instruct the students how to “embroider” their character. This morning I was thinking about this play as I thumbed through some copies of Time magazine while on the stairmaster. I came across the obituary of Doris “Granny D” Haddock who died this last month at the age of 100. Haddock is a woman who at age 94 ran for a senate seat in New Hampshire. I remembered her spunky, quotidian self from the news, and when they recounted her comment, “Democracy is not something you watch—it is something you do!” it reminded me of how I feel about theater: it is not just something I watch, but something I must do.

I will let you know how the week and the performances go…

Let’s see how they handle the butter and diamonds.