A jury's 'mental gymnastics'

The New Century Players explore the vagaries of a murder trial from a jury's point of view in the play "12 Angry Men and Women"

By Ellen Spitaleri

The Clackamas Review, Feb 2, 2010, Updated Feb 2, 2010

ellen spitaleri / clackamas Review

Mark Brown, far right, menaces fellow cast members, from left, Greg Prosser, Rich Denman and Sonya Fischer, as they rehearse “Twelve Angry Men and Women.”

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What looks like an open-and-shut case in the trial of a young man for fatally stabbing his father turns out to be much more in the upcoming production “Twelve Angry Men and Women,” presented by the New Century Players, opening on Friday, Feb. 5.

Director Gordon Mouser said he wanted to direct the show because he has always respected the reasons that Reginald Rose wrote it in the 1950s.

“I believe in Rose’s attempt to show us how easily we are manipulated to accept easy and often shallow decisions without a good deal of thought. The show has always fit well with my liberal bent,” he said.

The play takes place in the jury room after a young man’s trial for killing his father. As the jurors consider the evidence, tempers get short, arguments grow heated and the jurors become the 12 angry people of the title.

“The audience should enjoy the mental gymnastics that a jury often has to go through in order to reach a decision. They will also enjoy the fine performances of our actors. We have a very skilled and experienced cast that includes both men and women. I think having some of the jurors be women adds a texture that enriches the show even more,” Mouser said.

“The playwright is telling us about having the courage of our convictions in the face of overwhelming opinion or force against what we believe. The play was written during the McCarthy era of the ’50s when people were being persecuted for their associations and blacklisted for not turning in their friends. Reginald Rose chose the courtroom to play out the larger picture of events at the time,” said Terry Lybecker, who plays juror number two.

He added, “The play leaves room for the audience to come to their own decision as to whether the jury came to the correct decision. This is Rose’s question to us; who do we want to be as a people? Did the jury come to the correct decision by reason, or did they come to the wrong decision by letting principles stand over commonsense? This will have to be answered by each audience member. It is the thinking person’s play.”

Jurors speak

Mark Brown, who plays juror number three, described his character as opinionated and headstrong.

“He believes that he is right about what the verdict should be in this case. He is also not afraid to cram his opinion down the throat of the others. He uses sarcasm, shame, violence...anything that will get the others to go along and agree with what he says,” Brown noted.

The play is compelling, he added, because “it lets the audience be a fly on the wall in a jury room on a murder case, and it is full of drama, suspense and interesting characters.”

Jennifer Elkington plays juror number seven, who is “loud and brassy and has incredibly more important things to concern herself with than this silly trial – namely, a first date with someone she has loved for years; she is [also] quirky and dramatic, and loves to be the center of attention.”

The play will appeal to the audience, she noted, because the “relationships between the characters is fascinating. They like each other, then hate each other, support each other, then stab each other in the back. Not one single character leaves that jury room the same person they were 90 minutes before.”

Juror number five is the youngest of the characters, and actor Michael Shelton said, “[his character] has a completely different perspective on the trial because he himself is a former ‘slum kid.’ He’s not intimidated by the other jurors; but he is a little intimidated by the situation he is in. He’s never been in a position of power.”

In the play, there are “12 separate human beings, from different worlds, who in any other circumstance would never meet. [They are] put together and forced to decide if another human being should live or die. There’s a drama to that; there’s conflict...and it’s great how the script explores the human element of the story.”

Last summer Ron Palmblad played the Wizard in New Century’s “The Wizard of Oz,” and now he plays juror number six.

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