November 1, 2012

Rose’s creation earned him three Emmy Awards for best director, best actor and best writer. It was made into a 1957 movie starring Henry Fonda. You may remember it as a compelling criminal drama that takes place in the jury room and not the courtroom. This play is very well written and will always be relevant as long as we depend on juries to dole out justice in our penal system.

The original script called for 12 male jurors. Since then, some productions have involved women, but the present offering at the Sunset Playhouse sticks to an all-male cast comprised of a cross section of jurors of various ages and backgrounds. 

As we listen in on the deliberations, we discover that each person brings his prejudices, experience, observational powers and personality to bear on the question at hand. 

Juries and courtroom scenes remain eternally intriguing to most of us. Our intellectual and emotional selves are stretched, our abilities to distinguish between fact and inference are challenged, our capacity to empathize, to reason, to influence and be influenced by others - all these factors are brought to the mix.

The case involves a young black man who supposedly killed his father after years of physical and emotional abuse. Two eyewitnesses - a neighbor and a woman across the El tracks - have given testimony as to what they saw that night. The knife used in the stabbing is also used as evidence.

One juror defies the other 11 when he votes “not guilty” on the first vote. Then the fun begins. As the arguments and counter- arguments are heard, we begin to understand each juror and how his own past experiences, intellectual and emotional strengths, or weaknesses are affecting his judgment. We also discover which jurors are persuadable and which are adamant in their original decision despite conflicting evidence.

It is a hot day, the room is small, the jurors want to get on with their lives - perfect conditions for tension and conflict. Whenever people are “trapped” in a situation they’d rather not be in, it is hard to predict what might happen. That’s probably why there are so many dramas set in prisons, on boats or in jury or courtrooms.  Things start sizzling, challenging the foreman’s ability to maintain order and get the job done.

Kudos to director Matt Daniels for his fine work. Koren Black’s set design lent itself to some options for movement and varied configurations of jurors. The restroom and the skyline both afforded some contrast. This is a difficult play to block because the audience can never see all 12 actors at the same time. Director Matt Daniels did a noteworthy job of moving jurors about so we could get to see and know each of them.

All the actors delineated their individual roles, but a few stood out above the rest.  Randall T. Anderson, Dan Esposito, Spence Mather, Jared Kuehn, Ralph Frattura and Scott Jaeger all rendered their characters memorably.

Other jurors who also contributed significantly to the drama included Dustin J. Martin, Michael Chobanoff, John Roberts, Matthew J. Patten, Doug Smedbron and Gene Schulte, whose final speech was chillingly delivered and served as the climax in a high-drama situation. 

As Anderson leaves the jury room with Esposito, we felt the heavy burden that these men bore in the cause of administering justice in a very imperfect system. The final scene between these two very different men was very poignant.