The ceiling fan is broken. The cramped room swelters with heat which rolls in waves through the window. Outside of the room, a boy awaits verdict on whether or not he is guilty of killing his father. Inside, twelve jurors weigh his life in their hands--it’s freedom or the electric chair.
I’m sitting here in my dining room on a Friday night, an hour after seeing the new Drama Club production, and the only thing I can think of is this play.
This fall, the Saline High School Drama Club presented “12 Angry Jurors.” The play by Reginald Rose, originally titled “12 Angry Men,” aired on television in 1954 and starred an all-male ensemble. However, it was not performed today as a historical homage. It was performed today in the present time.
Kristen Glatz, Drama Club Advisor, phrases it more clearly in the program’s director’s notes: “It’s astounding how we can hear so much of this rhetoric coming out of the mouths of people in our time. And so I decided to set our version of the play in the now. We didn’t change any of the references or update the language, we simply set it in our own time.”
With many plays, this would be impossible. Ideas, mannerisms, social nuances... these form a river that changes and turns along the canals of time. Yet, they are also that which shape time, the very earth that guides them. In “12 Angry Jurors,” it becomes clear that society is nonlinear, does not progress in one direction. The play possesses an electric duality that places it firmly in both 1954 and 2019. How?
For the duration of the entire play, all actors remain on stage. The set, a stuffy jury room in a New York criminal court, never changes. All of the exposition, climax, and plot points unfold within this small space. It seems boring. What, no costume changes? No sing-offs? How does the story move forward??
The answer comes in the form of a dynamic cast. Twelve jurors. They are as different as they come. They are opinionated or shy, mild or bitter. They are a refugee from a conflict-torn nation, a bigot with no empathy but for his own, a truth-seeker who wants only to uphold justice. They are husbands and mothers and naive and wise. They are the product of their time, the maker of their time. And they are us, here, today.
What struck me most was how easily some of the lines fell from the actors’ mouths and into our day. You would hear them, too, if you turned on the TV or opened your favorite social media app. Great anger at the influx of immigrants to our country. Predisposition to judge, to categorize, to place people into groups. Disregard for facts, manipulation of facts, devotion to facts until they no longer serve their purpose. Words from a play over half a century ago still have commonplace today. It’s shocking.
Perhaps the most impactful part of the play was a lengthy monologue from a bigoted juror played by one of my classmates. With every sentence, I could feel my heart twist in my chest-- not just at the hatred of the words but their familiarity. The juror condemns the defendant to his ethnicity’s stereotypes, angrily claiming, “That’s how they are. You know what I mean? Violent!” He goes on to say the line we’ve all heard: “Oh, sure, there are some good things about them... I’m the first to say that. I’ve known a few who were pretty decent...”
Sound familiar? Maybe I can reword it. “I’m not being racist. I have Hispanic friends.” And so on, in a million different iterations.
History repeats itself. We all know the phrase. Whether or not you buy into it, the phrase still invokes a sort of helpless feeling. If it is true, then does mankind have free will? Are we doomed to be just rats running on fate’s wheel? As I stood up in the theater after watching the opening night performance, I certainly felt that sort of helplessness. Sixty-five years since its production, the play is a perfect portrayal of the climate today. Nothing has changed. Prejudices still blind truth and democracies are still held in the hands of the few. They couldn’t fix it then and we can’t fix it now. Why should we even bother trying to change anything?
The answer is quite simple: because we must. Because the most dangerous choice is that of inaction. Because to accept history as prophecy is to ensure it. When we make the conscious decision to step back, to let history run its course, we are not victims but bystanders. And that is unacceptable.
Now, amidst the civil war in our country, I can see the beginnings of a movement. A march led not by troops but children. By us. We are all different and the same, all connected and united and divided and, most importantly, shouting to be heard. You can call it naive but I will call it hope. We want to save our planet and our people. We are angry.
And we will all be the jurors in deciding the fate of our future.
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