Twelve average guys, locked in a cramped room on the hottest day of the year, must decide whether another man lives or dies. No, this isn’t the premise of a new reality show, but of Reginald Rose’s film and theater classic 12 Angry Men, which runs until Saturday at the Boston Center for the Arts.
The Stanley B Theater Company, a self-dubbed roaming repertory theatre devoted to the “re-imagination of plays,” produces the 1950s jury drama under the current climate of threatened civil liberties. Director Justin Waldman’s keen staging, combined with the work of a dexterous cast, makes for emotional boil-over in this taut production of the classic story.
The play opens with 12 unnamed jurors convened in a dingy jury room after the closing arguments of a six-day murder trial. With baseball tickets burning holes in their pockets or families waiting at home, most of the men hastily declare a seemingly obvious guilty verdict for the young murder suspect.
The drama heats up when Juror #8 (Michael Kaye) refuses to vote for the verdict that would surely result in the death penalty.
“It is not so easy for me to raise my hand and send a boy off to die,” Juror #8 says to defend his unpopular opinion. The resulting deliberation becomes the driving dilemma as the men confront their own prejudices – all within the tiny jury room.
Waldman captures the acute sense of personal conflict and emotional claustrophobia with his effective use of the simple set in the appropriately intimate BCA theater. Placing actors on the edge of the theater’s floor-level stage, the show disregards the traditional fourth wall. The director also uses tables and chairs to create physical boundaries between the actors as the once-cohesive group fractures.
The production takes pains to examine the intricacies of its main characters, ultimately one of its greatest strengths. Distinguishing the characters in 12 Angry Men can be especially difficult because Rose identifies them only by number, but this production makes the distinctions brilliantly, be it through a keen eye for staging or adept acting.
As the voice of dissent, Juror #8 initially demands attention; however, Mr. Waldman knows when to let his leading man fade into the background to bring other characters to the surface. This restraint not only allows for richer, deeper characters, but also highlights Waldman’s skill as a stage director.
The cast’s dexterity for character portrayal truly carries the production. Kaye, a teaching associate at Boston University’s College of Fine Arts, captures Juror #8’s disgust for his peers’ disregard for life with his contemptuous glare. Jeff Gill is the production’s standout as Juror #3, an embittered man who uses the trial to avenge personal grievances.
The production’s main flaw lies in its dismissal of minor characters. Waldman does not provide Dennis Strahan, as the Foreman, with the ample space to accurately portray the power-hungry juror described in Rose’s script. Also, Michael Avellar, with his adolescent appearance and negligible performance, appears miscast as the courtroom guard.
Despite the few weak spots in the cast, Stanley B Theater’s production of 12 Angry Men provokes the mind with thoughtful direction and competent acting.
The company doesn’t quite “re-imagine” the classic jury room drama, but it certainly demonstrates its relevance more than 50 years later.