Harper Lee's To Kill a Mockingbird has been a fixture of American classrooms and stages for six decades, but the version currently running at Boston's Huntington Theatre strips away some of the novel's most familiar assumptions. Aaron Sorkin's stage adaptation, directed by Huntington Artistic Director Loretta Greco, reframes Atticus Finch as a flawed man rather than the unimpeachable moral hero generations of readers remember, while giving Calpurnia and Tom Robinson room to speak for themselves.
The production runs at the Huntington through Sunday, November 8, after opening October 8, according to the Huntington Theatre, which bills it as the first regional production of Sorkin's adaptation. Sorkin, who also wrote A Few Good Men and The West Wing, adapted Lee's novel for the stage, and Greco directed, as The Boston Globe reported. Karl Kenzler stars as Atticus Finch, with Karen Killeen as Scout Finch and Benjamin Izaak as Jem Finch rounding out the central family, per the Huntington's casting announcement.
A Memory Play Told Through Grown-Up Eyes
Sorkin's script frames the story as a memory, with Scout, Jem and Dill appearing as adults before stepping into their younger selves to narrate the events in Maycomb. The Globe described the structure as a memory play told from the children's point of view but narrated by them as grown-ups speaking directly to the audience. In this telling, Scout is the one who examines the judge's instruction for the courtroom to rise, a detail that threads through the adaptation's reworking of the trial.
Even as the narrators remain Scout, Jem and Dill, Sorkin shifted the story's center of gravity. The Globe's report on the adaptation noted that Sorkin made Atticus the protagonist of his version, even though the children remain the storytellers. The production design itself leans away from realism, with the Globe's review describing a simple set rather than a naturalistic one.
Reworking Atticus, Calpurnia and Tom Robinson
Much of the conversation around Sorkin's adaptation centers on how it treats its best-known character. According to the Globe's review, Sorkin set out to peel away the white savior aura Atticus enjoyed in earlier versions of the story, presenting him instead as flawed. Greco told the Globe that Sorkin's adaptation gives Calpurnia and Tom Robinson strong voices, new dimensions and real moments of agency that the original novel didn't always afford them.
Greco has also said the Huntington fought hard to obtain the rights to stage the adaptation, and has described the play as retaining the novel's courtroom drama and the children's rite of passage while also tracing a rite of passage for Atticus himself. She has characterized Sorkin as an idealistic believer in the country, in democracy and in justice, a framing that runs through how the Huntington is presenting the show to audiences, according to CBS News.
How This Staging Fits the Play's Broader Run
Sorkin's adaptation has a track record before arriving in Boston. It premiered on Broadway in 2018 and on the West End in 2022, earning nine Tony Award nominations and five Laurence Olivier Award nominations, per the Huntington. Its national touring production also stopped in Boston in 2022, giving local audiences an earlier look at the script four years before the Huntington's own staging.
The Globe's review of the Huntington run compared Kenzler's performance to those earlier Atticus portrayals, including Jeff Daniels on Broadway and Richard Thomas in that 2022 touring production. The Huntington's production listing notes the play is set in 1934 and contains explicit racial slurs, and that this staging uses the sound of a gunshot in the first act. An ASL-interpreted performance was scheduled for Friday, October 30, at 7:30 p.m., and the Huntington estimates the show runs two hours and 45 minutes with one 15-minute intermission, though that time may shift during previews.
