Do we really have to wonder how a certain kind of play from the heyday of live television, in the medium’s 1950s infancy, can seem so fresh and relevant today? For all TV’s broadcast standards restrictions, those early "issues" dramas were often stark and passionate, authors taking very definite stands, offering very definite morals. Which is not to say the dramatizations were black and white (well, they were broadcast in black and white, but you know what I mean). Where there were gray areas, they were examined with vigor–many of those dramas, in fact, that seemed dated for a while, are now, in a divided nation, right on point again, and a prime example of the breed is "Twelve Angry Men" by Reginald Rose.
Originally a 60 minute teleplay starring Robert Cummings for Studio One, it achieved greatest fame with 20 cut minutes restored and expanded into a film starring Henry Fonda (and quite literally an all star cast) in 1957; it was then refashioned as a play for licensing out, and redone in 1997 with a multi-racial cast as a television movie for Showtime starring Jack Lemmon. But the play version is appearing here on Broadway for the first time.
The premise is simple. We’re in a jury room after defense and prosecution in a criminal case have rested. Twelve men file in to determine the guilt or innocence of a 16 year old boy who allegedly stabbed his father, killing him. A guilty verdict will send him to the electric chair. His ethnicity is never articulated as African-American, but as we listen to the jurors, his blackness is clear enough.
The jurors are all white, and never identified (to us) by name, only as Juror #1, Juror #6, foreman, etc. But they represent all strata of class, career and culture (garage-mechanic bigot, facile ad-man, smartass sports nut, cultured executive, bullying small-business owner, slow but thoughtful house-painter, meek bank clerk, etc. etc.). At first, the case would seem to be cut-and-dried toward guilt. But one juror (Boyd Gaines) holds out. He has questions. Despite pressure and even ridicule, he slowly and methodically builds a case for innocence, gradually even garnering the support and assistance of others. But it is a tense, angry process, that unearths deep-seated predilections and prejudices.
In the back of our minds, there is not much doubt as to the play’s outcome, but the writing is so rich, and the juxtaposition of views so charged, that Rose pulls off the great trick of making the outcome seem in jeopardy anyway. One is especially struck by the authenticity of language. Rose is, to be certain, dealing with archetypes, but he transcends them with sharp particularity and a flawless ear for the cadences and locution of each character’s background and education.
Scott Ellis, a director whose work I usually find efficient rather than inspired, has outdone himself here, with the selection of the cast, the pacing of the deliberations and–in the best sense–the claustrophobic environment. Among those cast members, aside from Mr. Gaines, are: Philip Bosco, Tom Aldredge, Robert Clohessy, Mark Blum, Kevin Geer, Michael Mastro, John Pankow, Peter Friedman, Adam Trese, Larry Bryggman, and James Rebhorn. And such is the alchemy among them that you very quickly forget you’re not watching an actual deliberation. Verité acting doesn’t get much better than this.
I suppose, too, there is another reason why "Twelve Angry Men" speaks so profoundly to the state of the nation as it is now.
Because it is a cry for rationality over emotionalism. For logic over belief. For justice prevailing over popular opinion. For the courage not to look the other way.
We’re going to need a lot of that in the next four years…