Backstage: Center Rep Prepares 'To Kill A Mockingbird'

Dan Hiatt, as Atticus Finch, points his rifle just above my head, aiming at the mad dog barreling in our direction.

“Shhhhiff!” he says, imitating the sound of a bullet whistling past my ear.

It’s a Center Repertory Company rehearsal of To Kill A Mockingbird, and I’m a fly on the wall, just a few feet from the action.

To my left, Center Rep Artistic Director Michael Butler leans forward, chin in one hand while he scribbles notes with the other, never allowing his fierce gaze to drift from the scene.

In the first five minutes, there has been a mad dog, a shooting, a young girl asking her father to explain what “rape” means, and the “N” word.

The question that comes to mind is Why?

Why take on Harper Lee’s classic novel, which rose to instant fame, then to iconic status with Gregory Peck winning an Academy Award as Atticus Finch in the 1962 film version?

Butler—occasionally pulling his silver, swirly-curly hair and flexing a face that snaps like a rubber band from perplexed to despair to jubilation during our 50-minute interview—was eager to answer the question. Center Rep, the in-house theater company for the Lesher Center for the Arts, opens this production of To Kill A Mockingbird 

“I don’t even think of it as pressure," he says. "The play is based especially on the novel, not the film. The characters are not famous as much as they are great. They have complexity, something that speaks to the larger part of our humanity.” 

Although he never read the book as a boy, and he saw the film for the first time just nine months ago, Butler has strong opinions about both.

“I didn’t like the film," Butler says. "I think Scout was great, but I didn’t think Gregory Peck was right for the part. Too movie star. He didn’t even try to do a Southern accent!”

Butler pauses, tugging on a lock of hair and moaning to himself, “Oh there, now I’m going to get myself in trouble."

“It just didn’t move me the way the book does," he continues. "The book is so much richer.”

Moving audiences is Butler’s purpose.

“The most meaningful thing I have gotten from being an artistic director is seeing an audience leaving the theater really flying high," he says. "That gives me deep, deep joy. It’s what people want: they want to escape.”

Lee's novel, To Kill A Mockingbird, arriving in the midst of the civil rights movement, can hardly be described as frothy escape. Published in 1960, Lee’s novel bears the influence of the Scottsboro Boys case of 1931, in which nine black teenage boys were accused of rape, and of Emmett Till’s murder after he was reported as flirting with a white woman in 1955, the same year as the well-known Montgomery bus boycott.

The film version was released in 1962, just before Americans waged racial warfare with the 1963 Birmingham Children’s Crusade, the 16th Street Baptist Church bombing and Martin Luther King’s Selma to Montgomery marches two years later.

“The reason the play resonates the most with me is that the book made it possible for whites to examine their own racism and consider changing,” Butler says.

“The first day, the cast read through the script and I talked about the 'N' word," he says. "All I wanted was to make sure everybody understood it is still a powerful word. It’s still shocking to hear Olivia, [Olivia Lowe, the actor playing Scout, the daughter] say it." 

“We can’t act like it was never used,” Joseph Ingram said in a panel discussion at the Walnut Creek Library on Feb. 22. Ingram will appear as Tom, the black man falsely accused of raping a white woman. “Unfortunately, it’s used as a term of endearment nowadays,” he added, surprising the largely white audience gathered at the library event to learn about the production. He explained that the word sometimes is used among members of the African-American community.

Butler says he knows some people will question if the “N” word should be used.

“The script is very protected, we have to do the words that are written, but the stage directions, costumes and set are left to us," he says.

Heavily influenced by the book and a desire to engage the audiences’ imagination, Butler has eliminated standard architecture and chosen a set design that is less fixed in the real world and more abstract, flexible and universal. 

“Theater can do that," he says. "Sure, you can bring a helicopter onstage and everyone will ooh and aah, but if you can make the audience see it when it’s not there, then you’ve done something." 

Butler sounds almost regretful as he talks about writing out some of the characters, or reducing their parts: “You can’t get everything in. If you did, [the play] would be five hours long!”

Of course, there is one character who hardly appears onstage but is pivotal to the story. He is very much included. 

“Boo Radley is a remarkable character," Butler says. "His part is small, but his shadow is so long."

"Boo Radley is that person we talk about. It’s even harsher than gossip, it’s actual judgment,” Butler exclaims, his face a mix of enthusiasm for the character and distaste for what he calls “the adult world’s disturbing aspects.”

The director  praises his cast. 

“Dan Hiatt, [Atticus] is an especially accomplished actor," Butler said. "More than anything, you just don’t want to get in his way. He has a special aptitude for a kind of American: a taciturn but heartfelt character." 

Although he initially worried about working with young actors for the first time, Butler says it has been a happy experience.

“It‘s fun to dial in that kid energy," he said. "When we were creating the chase scene, I was actually running around with them."

Butler relies on theater to transport him to another time and place, change him, then return him to the present. He hopes his audiences enjoy that experience, too.

“I know why they want to escape that awful stuff we’re bombarded with every day," he says. "They want to experience some element of our shared experiences that is uplifting, disturbing, complex and shows us a way out.”

For tickets and information about To Kill A Mockingbird, contact the Lesher Center for the Arts box office at 925-943-7469 or www.lesherartscenter.org.