Twelve Angry Men playbill

PL AYBILL twelve angry men

twelve angry men reginald rose }{

ARTIST NOTE: WILLIAM WEBSTER I was told years ago when you are unsure of what a play is about, go back to the title. It will guide and focus you. Twelve Angry Men. Anger?

For me anger is always the expression of my fears and resentments. When I doubt myself I often resent others for it. The result is a lashing out, externalized or not. That’s why I love this play.

The Twelve are an authentic expression of what I am and of what I hope to become.

Reginald Rose’s play was first presented as a live television drama in 1954. By 1957 it was a Broadway hit and Hollywood film. Set in New York, it’s important to remember context. The paranoia of the Cold War, the McCarthy hearings and palpable fear of the rising chaos of gangs that created an unhealthy sense of Isolation and Otherness.

This jury of 12 men holds the life of a 16-year-old boy in its hands. We have been given instructions by the judge, told we must come to a unanimous verdict of “Guilty” or, tempered by reasonable doubt, find the child “Not Guilty”. But once the jury room door is locked there is no map for us – we have to find it for ourselves. The resulting uncertainties of process make for deliberation, rage and consensus.

Visual evidence is said to be, often, the least reliable of proofs. It reminds me of the remarkable

passion of Rubin “Hurricane” Carter, who left us recently. Eye witnessing led to 19 years wrongful incarceration. Yet this man triumphed as few of us will. He shared his moral and spiritual strength with us here in Toronto and we are the better for it. “Who we are now is not who we were then”.

Amen.

William Webster, Juror 10 in Twelve Angry Men

TIDBITS • W omen

were part of juries in the United States from around 1870 in Wyoming but their actual participation was fairly rare until they were granted the right to vote in 1920.

Reginald Rose chose not to have any women on his fictional jury perhaps because he felt an all-male jury would create a more explosive, no-holds-barred dramatic situation.

• T he

1957 film of Twelve Angry Men was co-produced by writer Reginald Rose and the movie’s only bankable star, Henry Fonda.

This was the only time either man invested his own money in a film.

p roduc t ion s p on sor

CREATIVE TEAM

TWELVE ANGRY MEN

CA ST Byron Abalos

Juror 5

Derek Boyes

Juror 2

Tim Campbell Juror 4

Joe Cobden

Stuart Hughes

Juror 6

Cyrus Lane

William Webster

Juror 7

Robert Nasmith

Juror 9

Juror 10

Joseph Ziegler

Juror 3

Jordan Pettle

Juror 12

Juror 11

Tony DeSantis

Andre Sills

Foreman of the Jury

Michael Simpson

Juror 8

Guard

Produc tion Alan Dilworth Director

Yannik Larivee

Set & Costume Designer

Kimberly Purtell

Lighting Designer

Richard Feren

Sound Designer

Marinda de Beer

Stage Manager

Ashlyn Ireland

Assistant Stage Manager

Kelly McEvenue

Alexander Coach

Anahita Dehbonehie

Assistant Set & Costume Designer

Simon Fon

Fight Director

Eric Armstrong

Dialect Coach

SOULPEPPER PRODUC TION Jacqueline Robertson-Cull

Barbara Nowakowski

Wigs Running, Head of Hair & Makeup

First Hand

Erika Connor

Wardrobe Coordinator

Geoff Hughes

Dresser

Lead Wardrobe Coordinator Cutters

Natalie Swiercz

Paul Boddum

Scenic Painter

Greg Chambers

Props Builder

Coreena Cowton

s p e c i a l t h a n k s: Dav i d hoe k s t r a .

The video and audio recording of this performance by any means whatsoever are strictly prohibited.

Twelve Angry Men is presented by special arrangement with Samuel French, Inc. i l l u s t r at ion : t h e h e a ds of s tat e

BACKGROUND NOTES

R

easonable doubt is a fundamental principle in the criminal justice systems of both the United States and Canada. It is the standard of evidence required to validate a criminal conviction, with the prosecution – in Canada The Crown – bearing the burden of proof. We are all aware that an accused person is innocent until their guilt is proved in court beyond a reasonable doubt but how many of us know what that really means in practice? Could any of us define the legal meaning of reasonable doubt? As recently as 1997, the Supreme Court of Canada addressed this question in R. v. Lifchus. Since then, judges are required to give a detailed explanation of reasonable doubt to all juries, to ensure that they fully understand it before they deliberate.

The 12 men of the title enter the stifling jury room on “the hottest day of the year.” With them come their prejudices, beliefs, doubts, passions, worries and problems. They are frail, fallible human beings. Among them is Juror 8, an ordinary man who is determined to preserve the notion of reasonable doubt, in spite of over-whelming opposition. He – and Reginald Rose – articulate the weight and responsibility of this fundamental principle simply and beautifully: “We’re talking about somebody’s life here. We can’t decide in five minutes. Supposing we’re wrong?”

Playwright Reginald Rose did not have the benefit of a well-articulated explanation of this principle when he was called up for jury duty in 1954 but the experience made a deep impression on him (and on his career):

Reginald Rose was born in New York City in 1920.

He served in the U.S. military from 1942 to 1946, rising to the rank of First Lieutenant. In 1943 he married Barbara Langbart, with whom he had four children. After the war, he began writing for the then-emerging medium of television. His gritty dramas found a home on the CBS anthology series Studio One, which is where Twelve Angry Men premièred in 1954. It won Rose an Emmy and later an Academy Award nomination. The now-classic 1957 film received adoring reviews and a spread in Life magazine but was a box office disappointment, partly because it was in black and white and it came out with the first films done in technicolour. In a nice piece of irony, it only found its audience after it was shown on television. Rose continued to write mostly for television, helping to create the spare, realist style that network dramas often still use today. In the ’60s he had a new success with The Defenders, a TV series adapted from one of his old CBS teleplays. He won a second Emmy for his work on this program. In 1963, the divorced writer married Ellen McLaughlin and they had two children together. Reginald Rose died of complications from heart failure in 2002.

“It was such an impressive, solemn setting in a great big, wood-panelled courtroom, with a silver-haired judge...

I was overwhelmed. I was on a jury for a manslaughter case, and we got into this terrific, furious, eight-hour argument in the jury room” The riveting television drama that resulted is a vivid study of the American legal system in action.

When it won an Emmy Award, Rose adapted it for film. The stage play came last. Each version is spare and tightly focused on the characters and the question before them: is the teenaged defendant guilty of murder? If the jury finds him guilty, he will be condemned to death. In a fascinating decision, Rose preserves total anonymity: the jurors are known only by their numbers, the accused only as “the defendant” and witnesses by general descriptions like “the old man”. There’s a lot of talk about the defendant’s background but its exact nature is never revealed. Some things – like true guilt or innocence – will always remain a mystery.

Play wright Biogr aph y

Tidbits & Background Notes by 2014 Soulpepper Resident Artist Paula Wing

THANK YOU FOR ATTENDING!

416 866 8666 soulpepper.ca Young Centre for the Performing Arts Toronto Distillery Historic District

Soulpepper is an active member of the Professional Association of Canadian Theatres (pact), the Toronto Alliance for the Performing Arts (tapa) and Theatre Ontario, and engages, under the terms of the Canadian Theatre Agreement, professional artists who are members of Canadian Actors’ Equity Association. Scenic Artists and Set Decorators employed by Soulpepper are represented by Local 828 of the International Alliance of Theatrical Stage Employees.

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TWELVE ANGRY MEN • •