The Broadway adaptation of “To Kill A Mockingbird” simultaneously honors and updates Harper Lee’s classic American novel about justice and racism in the South. Aaron Sorkin’s adaptation of the story follows the familiar original narrative, but utilizes Scout’s youthful inquisitiveness to ask the important questions about the society in which they live. As Sorkin said in an interview in The Atlantic, the characters are “not getting repainted. We’re just taking another look, given the times we’re living in.”
Another important change Sorkin has made is the broadening of the relatively anonymous Black characters in Lee’s original story. One such character is Calpurnia, the Finch family’s friend and house keeper, played by Jacqueline Williams.
“Aaron Sorkin has done a brilliant job of the adaptation,” Williams said. “He’s done a wonderful job of fleshing out Calpurnia and Tom Robinson. She and Atticus’ relationship is very much the anchoring relationship of the piece.”
In “To Kill A Mockingbird,” Calpurnia is a woman who functions in both the white and Black communities of Maycomb. Because of this, she provides a window into the Black community for Scout and thereby for the audience, too. In the play, Calpurnia and Atticus are like siblings and confidants.
“There’s a trust and freedom between the two of them to speak freely, to confide in each other, and to disagree,” Williams said. “There’s a lot of playfulness between them as well. But for Atticus, as liberal as he is, there are things he just can’t know or truly understand from the Black perspective. Calpurnia schools him from time to time on things. She’s frank. She shoots straight from the hip. She’s truthful and wise and solid. And she’s also very funny. It’s a joy to play her.”
Sorkin’s adaptation of “To Kill A Mockingbird” opened on Broadway in December of 2018, 58 years after the novel was originally published. Though educators still teach Lee’s story in classrooms across the country, it continues to land on banned and challenged book lists, which is why, according to Williams, the play had to come into being.
“That’s why we’re out here,” Williams said. “Not just for nostalgia’s sake. Not just because it’s a great, beloved story, but because it’s still needed. We have made very, very little progress since 1934 when this story takes place. We still need it. We need action. I never could understand the justice in banning this book. Yes, it is a fictional story based on and inspired by real life events from Harper Lee’s life. But it’s part of our history.”
Texas Performing Arts presents “To Kill A Mockingbird,” opening May 9 at the Bass Concert Hall in Austin and will run through Sunday, May 14, Tuesday through Friday at 8 p.m., Saturday at 2 and 8 p.m., and Sunday at 1 and 7 p.m. Tickets start at $35 and are available at texasperformingarts.org and BroadwayinAustin. com, by phone at (512) 477-1444, or from the Texas Performing Arts ticket office at Bass Concert Hall.
"It’s still needed. We have made very, very little progress since 1934 when this story takes place. We still need it. We need action." — Jacqueline Williams
Calpurnia in “To Kill A Mockingbird”
