To Kill a Mockingbird hits Broadway after lawsuit over Aaron Sorkins script | Harper Lee

The Social Network screenwriters take on Harper Lees novel had been opposed by her estate, and reports say portrayal of Atticus Finch has been softened Litigation from the estate of Harper Lee has forced the producers of the Broadway adaption of To Kill a Mockingbird, which opens on Thursday, to change their portrayal of Lees

This article is more than 5 years old

To Kill a Mockingbird hits Broadway after lawsuit over Aaron Sorkin’s script

This article is more than 5 years old

The Social Network screenwriter’s take on Harper Lee’s novel had been opposed by her estate, and reports say portrayal of Atticus Finch has been softened

Litigation from the estate of Harper Lee has forced the producers of the Broadway adaption of To Kill a Mockingbird, which opens on Thursday, to change their portrayal of Lee’s iconic lawyer Atticus Finch as a man who drinks alcohol, keeps a gun and curses mildly.

Instead, the character played by actor Jeff Daniels is “as the estate wanted … a clean-living hero throughout, who is described in the play’s opening moments as the ‘most honest and decent person in Maycomb’”, according to the New York Times, which has seen previews of the much-anticipated production.

In March, a lawsuit from the late author’s estate had claimed that the script, which was written by Aaron Sorkin, departed from the spirit of the novel, in particular around the character of Atticus. The suit filed by Tonja Carter, who had been Lee’s lawyer, said that “for this classic, it is really important that any spin put on the characters, not least Atticus, does not contradict the author’s image of them”, adding that the small-town lawyer who defends a black man wrongly accused of rape “is portrayed in the novel as a model of wisdom, integrity, and professionalism”.

According to documents released at the time by producer Scott Rudin’s office, in one letter Carter complained that Sorkin’s Atticus “is more like an edgy sitcom dad in the 21st century than the iconic Atticus of the novel”. Rudin’s company Rudinplay subsequently countersued and both parties settled amicably in May, allowing the play to proceed.

The New York Times reported that previews revealed it contained “dramatic changes” to the novel. Sorkin’s play centres on the trial of Tom Robinson, while the story’s black characters – Robinson and the Finch family’s housekeeper Calpurnia – “express anger and frustration” beyond anything seen in the novel, with Robinson telling Finch in one scene: “I was guilty as soon as I was accused.”

The report added that Carter had objected to “about 80” elements in the script, with “about 40% of those elements now gone”. According to the paper, a new character – a black doctor who would have testified at the rape trial – was dropped from the play because the estate had said that he “introduces numerous highly charged political issues into the trial”.

Sorkin, the screenwriter of The Social Network and Steve Jobs, wrote in New York magazine that he had been asked by Rudin “what items on Carter’s list of objections I was willing to alter to her satisfaction”. None, he replied: “The play can’t be written by a team of lawyers.”

But with the play in jeopardy if the dispute wasn’t settled, Sorkin revealed that he “finally said, ‘If Tom Robinson and Calpurnia are taken off the table as issues, I’ll cut ‘Jesus Christ’ and ‘Goddamit,’ Atticus won’t have a rifle in his closet, and he won’t drink a glass of whiskey after the trial.’”

Sorkin wrote that he felt that Lee’s novel had not shown Calpurnia or Robinson’s reactions to the racial injustice around them: “Tom begs for his life, and Cal bakes crackling bread. It’s the kind of thing that would have gone unnoticed in 1960, but in 2018, using black characters only as atmosphere is as noticeable as it is wrong. Also, in this instance, a wasted opportunity.”

Sorkin alleged that Carter had objected to the following exchange:

Calpurnia: Jem was stickin’ up for you and maybe a little bit me and you made him say he was sorry.

Atticus: I believe in being respectful.

Calpurnia: No matter who you’re disrespecting by doin’ it.

Sorkin said that Carter had responded to this interaction with: “A typical black maid in the South at this time would never talk to their employer this way.”

Sorkin wrote: “A coupla thoughts: There’s no such thing as a typical black maid. Plays aren’t written about typical people doing typical things.”

According to the New York Times, the play’s producers prevailed, and Sorkin’s script gives Calpurnia and Robinson a greater voice. Carter declined to be interviewed by the paper, while Rudin said that the production is “exactly the play we want to present … A small handful of issues were simply not important to us, and out of deference to the estate’s wishes, we agreed to them.”

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