Why ‘Mockingbird’ still resonates

Timely — and timeless.

Both adjectives apply to Nevada Conservatory Theatre's production of "To Kill a Mockingbird," which opens an 11-performance run Friday at UNLV's Judy Bayley Theatre.

Timeless — because that's what Harper Lee's Pulitzer Prize-winning novel has been since its 1960 publication. (Along with the book's Oscar-winning 1962 movie adaptation, which forever cemented Gregory Peck in our collective consciousness as heroic widower and attorney Atticus Finch, who defends a black man against an unjustified rape charge — and his kids against prejudice — in Depression-era Mississippi.)

But it's also timely, both for "Mockingbird's" exploration of race relations and for author Lee's return to the top of the best-seller lists last summer with "Go Set a Watchman." (At least until all those mixed-to-negative reviews began appearing.)

Nevada Conservatory Theatre officials "didn't even know" that "Go Set a Watchman" was about to return Harper Lee to the literary spotlight, according to artistic director Christopher Edwards.

Instead, "Mockingbird" wound up on Nevada Conservatory Theatre's season schedule because "I just love it," he says of "the live manifestation of the book."

It's a book that seems as timely as ever, Edwards notes.

Half a century after its initial publication during the civil rights era, "To Kill a Mockingbird" retains its thought-provoking power.

Especially "when we look at what's going on now," Edwards points out, from white officers fatally shooting black suspects to the Black Lives Matter campaign that has followed.

Beyond its focus on race relations, however, "To Kill a Mockingbird" also explores a host of other themes.

There's the coming-of-age viewpoint of Atticus' tomboy daughter Scout, for example.

Adds director Barbara Brennan, "It's about family, it's about honor."

"And learning empathy," Edwards says. "It's a play about creating empathy."

Brennan's empathy with "To Kill a Mockingbird's" characters began early, when her "mother read the story to us as kids," she recalls.

But actor Stephon Pettway — who plays Tom Robinson, the client Atticus Finch defends against a false rape charge — recently read "To Kill a Mockingbird" for the first time.

"I was moved — it's so relevant to what's happening" with "the incarceration of African-American men" and "the number of men wrongfully accused," Pettway says. "That's a big component of the story, but it's also a story of children and their growing up" amid "harsh reality."

This "Mockingbird's" Atticus Finch, actor Darren Weller, has a different perspective regarding the book — and the character he plays.

Although Weller has lived in Las Vegas for seven years, he hails from Australia — and though Australians "recognize it as a great piece of literature," there's nothing like the "real attachment" Americans have for "To Kill a Mockingbird" and its characters.

When he first read the book, Weller "identified with Scout and Jem," Atticus' children (who are played in the Nevada Conservatory Theatre production by Caroline Stanton and Ken Haley, respectively).

As for the Oscar-winning actor who brought Atticus Finch to life on the big screen, "Gregory Peck looms large," Weller admits. "He's everyone's Atticus."

But "when you're playing a character so well-known, you can't play the idea of the person," the actor continues. "You have to play the person."

Director Brennan acknowledges that "almost everyone has read the book" — and "people are really familiar with the film. More people have probably seen the film" than have read Lee's original.

But "we've worked really hard," she adds, "to do our own version."

This stage version includes a narrator who "holds the whole thing together," in Brennan's view: Jean Louise Finch, the adult Scout grows up to be.

"It's told by an adult, looking through the eyes of a child," the director explains. "You have a juxtaposition of Jean Louise and Scout," one that underlines the story's coming-of age themes. (Jennifer Rohn portrays the adult Jean Louise in Nevada Conservatory's production.)

But "the story covers so many points of view," Brennan adds, noting that even with a character like the villainous Bob Ewell (played by Jack Lafferty), "you feel sorry for him," she says. "How did he get that way?"

Throughout the story, "every single one of these characters has a choice," the director points out, "Every one has a chance to make a choice."

And while "To Kill a Mockingbird" may question some of their choices, it doesn't judge the characters making them, Brennan notes.

"You have to put yourself in somebody else's shoes," she says. "You can't make a judgment, because you really don't know."

In Edwards' view, it's "dismaying" that a story "about the 1930s, published in the '60s" remains "still relevant in 2016."

But that's the nature of being human, Brennan reasons.

After all, "we weren't born with wings and halos," she says.

Not even Atticus Finch.

Read more stories from Carol Cling at reviewjournal.com. Contact her at ccling@reviewjournal.com and follow @CarolSCling on Twitter.