In January I was invited to be part of my church‘s production of Twelve Angry Men. We have a drama ministry known as The King’s Players, and over the last 20+ years we’ve done dozens of productions, including Ben Hur, Steel Magnolias, and It’s A Wonderful Life. In recent years I’ve had small parts in a few plays (for some reason, two different times I was cast as Judas in I Am The Vine), but I haven’t had any significantly large roles since I was in High School, when I was in The Best Christmas Pageant Ever and Release.
Anyway, the two young ladies who were co-directing the play asked me to play Juror #8, the lone dissenter portrayed by Henry Fonda in the 1957 film. It sounded like a lot of fun, and although I’d never had a leading role before I was pretty sure I could pull this one off. (In truth, the character is not that much of a stretch for me, and a few of my friends even commented that I was just playing myself and wasn’t really acting at all. Heheh, fair enough.) The only thing that I was sorta concerned about was how much the rehearsals would impact my work schedule and how Janet would feel about sacrificing any and all major weekend plans until the end of May. But Janet was quite supportive of the idea, so I decided to go for it.
It should be noted that although Fonda’s role in the film certainly seems like the “leading” role, the play is really an ensemble piece. There are a couple other characters whose parts were comparable to mine in terms of size and importance to the story. Thus, I was very pleased that we had such an excellent cast filling the other parts. These guys were so much fun to work with! I had an especially fun time in the confrontation scenes with Juror #3, played by Brian Herrington. Unlike me, Brian really had to act to portray his role, and he’s very good at it.
How did I do? Well, I wish I could say each of our performances went off flawlessly, but of course that’s not the case. On Friday night, I actually got completely, horribly stuck on one line for several seconds. In fact, it was a rather critical part of a scene where my argument was finally winning a solid majority of the votes on the jury. I’m afraid it was rather obvious to everyone that I just blanked out and momentarily forgot the line. (Sigh…) Oh well. Eventually I got back on track and finished the rest OK. I felt embarrassed, but I didn’t beat myself up about it, and I didn’t let myself dwell on it too much. There’s just no point in that, right? On Saturday night I think I did much better, but still had a bit of trouble with a few lines (different lines, at least). Fortunately, this time my mistakes were the small and inconsequential sort that were probably transparent to everyone in the audience. Finally, on Sunday, I think I more or less nailed it — at least, I think I nailed it as well as I could, so that felt nice. I’m glad I got to finish the play on a positive note rather than a disappointing one. Here are a few pictures from one of our dress rehearsals, taken by Paul Hara:
Juror #8
Tell me what the facial characteristics of a killer are!
How come you believed her? She's one of them too, isn't she?
Look at it! It's the same knife!
Guilty... Guilty... Guilty...
Down the hall?! Are we to send a boy off to die because it's down the hall somewhere?
You don't really mean you'll kill me, do you?
He had to get up out of bed, get his canes, walk twelve feet, open the bedroom door, walk forty-three feet down the hall and open the front door -- all in fifteen seconds.
Look out!
To say this boy is guilty, you have to toss his intelligence like a pancake!
The cast and crew
I just wish I had remembered to wear a belt to rehearsal that night. (Sigh.) Oh well.
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