12 Great Performances By 12 Angry Men
Does it really make sense for a knife aficionado to have swung downward into his victim when using a switchblade? Does the fact that one man can't remember which actor starred in a movie he saw four days ago mean that it's possible that another man would be as equally confused about such things just hours after his alleged movie theatre alibi?
These are the kinds of points you and your guests may argue on the way out of the theatre after seeing 12 Angry Men, and indeed, during much of this expertly-staged Kennedy Center production, it's hard not to jump onstage and join the jurors' debate as they toss around theories, opinions and prejudices. This is theater that demands intellectual participation from its audience.
12 Angry Men is one of those idealistic plays about moral conflict that teaches us a little bit about human nature without ever feeling overly didactic or painstakingly preachy. In the play, a teenager from a tough neigborhood has been accused of murdering his father in what seems to be no-brainer case, with motive, eye-witnesses: the works. One juror (Richard Thomas) begs to differ, and soon, nothing is certain as his eleven counterparts try to sort out what exactly happened the night of the crime, revealing little nuggets about each of their true natures along the way.
Top-billed actors Thomas (earnestness personified as Juror #8) and George Wendt of "Norm!" fame (essentially in a glorified cameo as the foreman) are both fine in their respective roles, but it is the lesser-touted men giving the more interesting performances here. These include Alan Mandell as a sympathetic, feeble-seeming old man whose moral compass provides him strength beyond his years, Julian Gamble as a barely-concealed (and eventually revealed) racist whose most explosive monologue is bracing but riveting, and Randle Mell as Juror #3, one of the angriest of our angry men, whose eventual breakdown is one of the work's most revealing moments, giving us powerful insight into the character's psychology. Truly, though, every performance in this production is worthy of praise, and the group gels together to provide a convincing ensemble of the kind of mindsets and mini-agendas that could easily make up a jury.
The set is just what you'd expect for a standard jury-room depection, and the technical team does a nice job of switching atmospherically from day to night, as a raging downpour outside darkens the skies, and subsequently the juror's moods, as time wages on. A classy production of an emotionally arresting work, 12 Angry Men has everything to recommend it.
12 Angry Men runs through Oct. 22 at the Eisenhower theater at the Kennedy Center. Tickets are available online.